


Summer Nights Part 1

by Kari_Kurofai



Series: Summer!Verse [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:02:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kari_Kurofai/pseuds/Kari_Kurofai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray and Michael were supposed to take this trip to Europe together. It was their last big hurrah before they fucked off to college or to McDonalds or to wherever the hell people go after high school leaves them high and dry in the adult world. Except Ray had tripped and fallen headfirst into a long distance relationship and left Michael alone for the summer. Well fuck it, he’s going to Europe anyways. There’s plenty of stuff to do there. Alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Nights Part 1

In hindsight, it was never really that much of a brilliant plan to begin with. They came up with it over very illegally obtained drinks (ingested on Michael‘s part), which should have been the first warning. But when Ray said, “We should backpack around Europe after graduation,” stubbornly sober as usual, it had seemed fucking magical to drunk-Michael. Two bros dicking around in a foreign country with nothing but some shit stuffed in a bag, visiting the sights and the nude beaches? Hell yeah he wanted to go. So he and Ray saved up, made plans, mapped out their route, and were all set to go by the time graduation loomed around the corner.

And then Ray met Courtney. Or rather, Ray connected with Courtney over some online crap. Michael doesn’t know and Michael doesn’t care. It’s great, sure, because relentlessly teasing Ray for dating some chick he’s never seen is hysterical. But when Ray says he wants to spend his trip money to go see Courtney instead, shit gets real.

Or rather, Michael gets pissed. He yells, he throws things, he lets Ray know exactly how fucking stupid it is of him to back out at the last second and leave him hanging. “Bros before hos!” is repeated at least a dozen times, but Ray doesn’t budge on his decision, and Michael is too damn stubborn to drop the matter and spend the summer at home.

Which is how he ends up on a plane to London three days after graduation, alone and flying across the ocean purely out of spite. Honestly, he’s not as mad as he pretends to be. He’s happy for Ray and his stupid new-couple bliss, really, he is. The fact that Ray decided to ditch him in favor of it though is another matter entirely. He saved up for an entire god damn year only to get on the plane alone, and no matter how much he convinces himself he’s fine with that, it fucking sucks.

However, there’s only so long someone can sulk before it gets old. Michael’s patience is fairly thin to begin with, even when it comes to himself, so it’s only after about two hours that he gives up stewing in his own rage and texts Ray, flight safety rules be damned.

_Michael: I’m a dick_

_Ray: Nah_

_Ray: You’re good. We’re good_

_Michael: You’re also a dick_

_Ray: Yep. I’d apologize for ditching you last minute but . . ._

_Michael: I don’t even want to know. Also you’re an asshole and I hate you_

_Ray: @}-----_

_Michael: Wtf is that_

_Ray: Rose for you <3_

_Michael: Fuck you_

_Ray: Text me when you get off the plane_

A flight attendant walks past and Michael quickly turns off and pockets his cellphone again before leaning back in his seat with a sigh. If he could, he’d take the first flight home as soon as he lands, because there’s really no point of wandering around Europe on his own. Except he’s already spent the money to get there, and it would be wasteful as hell to just turn right back around. For awhile, he flips through the flimsy guide in the seat pocket in front of him, staring at all the pictures of places he and Ray had planned to go together and trying not to be too bitter about it. It was supposed to be their last big hurrah, the sendoff before they went to college or into the work force or whatever they decide to do with their lives. Doing it by himself seems wrong, somehow.

Turning back definitely isn’t an option, though. He didn’t save up for a year just to spend his summer being miserable at home. Whether he’s in Europe or in New York, Ray still won’t be there. So really, he should do his best to have fun anyways, right? Carefully, he starts to dog-ear pages in the guide, figuring he might as well still go to some of the places, even though he’s more or less lost the will to. There’s no point in spending the entire summer moping around in a hotel. After a moment of thought, he decides to concentrate his travels to England, remembering that Ray was the only one out of the two of them who even attempted to learn a foreign language. “None of that parlez vous Francais shit for me,” he mutters to himself. “I refuse. No.”

“Gonna see London, but not France,” the girl in the seat beside him whispers under her breath.

Immediately, Michael whips around to stare at her, taking in her blond hair, lithe appearance, and oddly fashionable attire for someone on an overnight flight. “Excuse me?” She glances at him out of the corners of her eyes and gestures to the headphones in her ears with a cheeky smile. This is one of those moments where Michael wishes that the entire world was Jersey born, if only so a fit of cussing at her would be justified. He is not in the mood for cocky little blonds right now. Although here flying in economy, civil and sarcastic conversation might work just as well. “First time abroad?”

The girl slowly raises an eyebrow and pulls one of the earbuds out, “Really? Small talk?”

Michael shrugs, “Got nothing else to do. And seeing as you were already eavesdropping on my muttering to myself, I see no harm in starting an actual fucking conversation.”

He expects her to react to his language, to frown or gasp or do something visibly or audibly, and yet the look she gives him in response is entirely deadpan. “Well a ‘fucking’ conversation would involve way more things than I’m willing to do, so I’m going to say yes. There is some harm in that.”

Unable to decide whether he should be intimidated or impressed by her, Michael snaps, “I wasn’t being literal.”

“Obviously, because you’re clearly vertical.” She draws a line with her finger up into the air. “You gotta tilt your seat back to be lateral.” Michael’s torn between putting his head in his hands and biting her head off. For the sake of staying out of prison, he chooses the former and rests his forehead in his palms with a groan. Unfortunately, she does not take the hint, and instead leans over the armrest between them with a sly grin that quite honestly makes Michael very uncomfortable. “First time abroad for you then too?”

Michael slams his head back onto his seat with a very tight, “Yes.”

“When are you flying back?”

“Currently the plan is early September,” he grits out.

She studies him for a moment before saying, very seriously, “Please tell me your family said ‘Have a nice trip, see you next fall’ when you left.”

“No,” Michael returns dryly. “No they did not.”

“Waste of a chance.”

“Waste of a trip,” Michael mutters, flinching slightly a heartbeat later when he realizes he said that aloud. “Fuck. Sorry, I didn’t-”

She waves a hand dangerously close to his face, “Nah, nah. It’s good. You’re funny.”

Immediately, Michael turns a glare to her, “I swear to god, if you follow that up with ‘funny looking’ I will not be responsible for the damages done to you and this plane.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She grins in a fashion that can only be described as “shit eating,” and Michael reminds himself that punching people in the face is only acceptable in videogames. “By the way,” her open hand lands on the armrest as if she meant to karate chop it, and Michael jumps a little, “I’m Barbara.”

Michael considers the gesture for a moment as he attempts to decide whether or not he wants to associate with this girl. On one hand, he’s bored beyond all belief and in the middle of his most epic sulk to date. He could definitely use some company and entertainment. On the other, it seems that Barbara’s brand of company and entertainment is pissing people off with terrible but surprisingly quick puns. “Er . . .” he stalls, listing the pros and cons in his mind before forgoing them entirely in order to take her hand with a sigh that suggests he’s going to regret this decision, “Michael. I’m Michael.”

**[_First Meeting_ by Space-catss](http://space-catss.tumblr.com/) **

Barabara shakes his hand enthusiastically, to the point where Michael wishes he’d worked on his grip a little more than what it takes to hold a console controller. “Flying solo?” she asks.

This time, he doesn’t even bother with a reaction to that statement. “Unfortunately. My friend dicked out on me last minute.” He fiddles with the magazine guide on his lap, suddenly embarrassed to admit that the sites he just marked in it are now intended to be visited alone. In theory, a vacation for one sounds cost effective and relaxing, but really he’d shove all of that in a heartbeat to have Ray on the plane with him. _Fucking Ray_. Michael decides right then and there he’s not going to buy him a single souvenir. “I . . . Uh . . .” He blinks as he notices she’s waiting for him to say something else, add on explanation or elaboration of some sort. “You’re traveling alone too, right?” It’s an assumption based only on the fact that she’s currently occupying the window seat with only Michael and some elderly old man in the same row. And as much as he’s familiar with the fact that sometimes seating can be shit and split you and your friends and family up, he gets the feeling that’s not the case.

“Eh, kinda,” she shrugs. “I’m visiting a friend though, so I’m not sure that really counts.”

“Not really,” Michael agrees. He fumbles for how to continue the conversation, if only to keep him from being bored out of his fucking mind. “So, uh, a friend huh?”

“He’s an online friend,” Barbara clarifies.

At this, Michael can’t help but let out a choked laugh. “What? Seriously? And a dude? How do you know he’s not some creepy old pedophile?”

Barbara rests her chin in her hand, “There’s this thing. It’s called a webcam.”

Michael’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline, “So you’ve been skype-sexing some creepy old pedo?”

She rolls her eyes, “No. I mean that I’ve seen him, and he’s not a skeevy old geezer. And even if he was a pedophile he’d be shit out of luck cause I’m eighteen.”

Without a pause, Michael begins mock applauding this statement. “Congrats. Still doesn’t mean he’s not a creepy old fuckfart. Maybe the guy you saw on camera was his sex slave, some other nincompoop he lured into his clutches.”

Barbara doesn’t miss a beat when she replies, “Well then I’m screwed.” When she doesn’t follow that statement up with “get it” Michael does it for her, and Barbara laughs. “But no,” she says once she catches her breath, “really, he’s not like that . . . Probably.”

“Probably,” Michael echoes. “Because nobody ever lies on the internet.”

“Maybe that’s why he refused to meet me at the airport,” Barbara jokingly muses, grinning when Michael looks rather aghast at this new tidbit of information. “It’s too bothersome for him, apparently.”

“What kinda dick doesn’t pick his girl up from the airport?”

“A poncey British dick. Also, not his girl.” She narrows her eyes when he starts to open his mouth, and though Michael likes to boast his don’t-back-down, Jersey-born attitude, he immediately shuts up. “A dude and a chick can be friends without being in a romantic or sexual relationship,” Barbara continues. Michael chooses not to give in to the urge to raise an eyebrow, though he can tell Barbara knows he wants to. She points a finger at him, “Say nothing. No sarcasm. No faces. No nothing.”

This time, Michael does raise an eyebrow, “No bad puns?”

Barbara crooks a little smile, “Definitely not. Only I’m allowed to do that.”

“If only because the rest of humanity wastes such wit on jokes that are actually funny.” Michael puts his chin in his hands and bats his eyelashes when Barbara’s smile swiftly turns into a scowl.

She jabs a finger into his ribs, and Michael can’t help but flinch. Christ, there were no holds barred there. “And here I was feeling sorry for the poor little lost bear,” she says, a slow, scary sort of grin spreading across her face. Michael swallows. “No friends, no destination,” she continues, and seriously, her tone is starting to give Michael the willies. “And I bet you didn’t even think to book a hotel room.”

“Um.” Michael fidgets in his seat, horrified both by the fact that no he had not thought ahead and booked a hotel because that was originally Ray’s job, and the fact that Barbara had just completely called him out on being an _unprepared dingus_. Doubly fan-fucking-tastic. “I-”

Barbara digs her finger into his ribs a bit more, smirking when he visibly bites back the rest of his sentence. “Tell you what, tough stuff. You seem like a good guy, despite first impressions. You’re like an M&M, hard exterior but after a few chips off the shell you get to the big buncha mush on the inside.” Michael purses his lips, his eyebrows furrowing. He refrains from comment only because of the perfectly manicured and painted nail currently attempting to wear a hole through his shirt and into his skin. “So I’ll make you a deal. You pay for anything I eat or drink out of the mini-bar, and I’ll let you borrow the floor of my hotel room for the night. Emphasis on floor. If you get handsy I’m kicking your ass all the way to Timbuktu.”

Michael blinks, “ . . . Is Timbuktu even a real place?”

It takes a second, a long drawn out moment where they make eye contact, and then Barbara cracks, a laugh bursting out of her so hard her shoulders shake and she leans forward to rest her forehead to Michael’s shoulder in an effort to not collapse in her seat. “I,” she gasps between giggles, “I honestly have no idea!”

He stares at her in an attempt to figure out whether or not she’s completely lost her god damn mind. When her hiccupping laughter doesn’t subside after a minute, and it’s starting to attract the stares of their fellow passengers, he decides she’s definitely at least a little whacked in the brain. Which is totally fine, because he figured out long ago that he was too. Hesitantly, he pats her back and hopes to god that doesn’t fall under the category of “handsy.” “I hope you know you’re fucking bonkers,” he hisses, very aware of the old man to his right giving them one of the most steely stares he’s ever received in his life. And that’s saying a lot. “But I’ll accept your offer because I’m an unprepared nincompoop.”

“We can form a club,” Barbara gasps, “People Overseas Operating On Poorly Prepared Plans.”

“That’s one too many O’s and two too many P’s to spell poop, just so you know,” Michael deadpans.

“I couldn’t make it fit and still make sense with only two O’s and two P’s!”

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

_Michael: Yo, asshole, I’m off the plane_

_Ray: Congrats. How’s London?_

_Michael: Dark. Supposedly it’s still fucking daytime but I can’t tell THROUGH ALL THESE GOD DAMN RAIN CLOUDS AND SHIT_

_Ray: Scream it to the clouds babe. Announce your angry Yankee presence to all the redcoats_

_Michael: Fuck you. You should be here getting soaked as dicks too_

_Ray: And take the spotlight away from you? Nah_

_Michael: I’m facing the general direction of the Atlantic right now and making very rude gestures. Just an FYI_

_Ray: Cool. I’m sure I’ll feel the anger from them cross the time zones eventually_

Michael rubs a damp hoodie sleeve over the screen of his phone, a useless effort as it only becomes even more unreadable. With a sigh he pockets the thing before the rain can ruin it. At the moment, reading the rest of Ray’s probably sarcastic message comes second to getting somewhere warm and hopefully dry. Supposedly the hotel room Barbara’s suspicious internet acquaintance has so graciously set her up with for the night is within walking distance of the airport, however Michael is starting to have his doubts. Because eight fucking blocks in the pouring rain is not walking distance. Although, as Barbara has said at least four times already, it wasn’t raining when they’d started walking. And as Michael has said, clearly they were both two steps away from a flat out vegetative state because neither of them had packed for the perpetual and well known London weather.

Beside him Barbara shivers hard enough to make Michael stop, attention diverted from his own soaking wet clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin to her. “Christ, sorry,” he mutters before steering her under the barely-covering shelter of a nearby overhang. She watches, bemused for a moment as Michael opens his duffle, heedless of the rainwater dripping from the thin slant above them onto his clothes, and pulls out a miraculously dry coat from the middle before zipping it up again. “Here,” He practically tosses the thing over her head, taking only a second to check that it’s covering her shoulders and most of her torso as well, and steps out into the rain again.

“Such a gentleman,” Barbara commends. “But seriously, your coat is gonna get ruined if I-”

Michael cuts her off. “You really wanna risk getting sick in a foreign country?” When she fails to reply he snorts, “Yeah, didn’t think so. Come on then before we both fucking die out here.”

Surprisingly (at least to Michael, who’s understandably suspicious as fuck of any asshole who refuses to pick a girl up from the airport), the hotel itself isn’t complete shit. In fact, it’s actually kind of nice. They even have one of those Alfred Pennyworth type dudes to take their bags up. “This is weirdly classy,” he whispers to Barbara when they enter the elevator to discover that there’s some guy in there whose entire job consists of pushing the buttons for them. “Also, how the hell do I get such a cushiony job?” The elevator operator gives them a sharp look out of the corners of his eyes, and Michael chokes on a laugh, his hand over his mouth.

“Yeah,” Barbara agrees once they’ve skittered out of the elevator and out of earshot of the operator. “I didn’t expect the place to be nice, to be honest.” She opens the door to her assigned room and pokes her head in, scanning the place as if she expects to find assassins or kidnappers or something ready to spring. “Do me a favor and check under the bed,” she says, motioning towards Michael before she heads off in the direction of the bathroom.

Dutifully, he does as instructed, relieved to find fuck all under there. “Not even dust bunnies,” he reports as he glances towards the open bathroom door. Barbara is standing in front of the mirror, hand held out so only the very tips of her fingers are touching the glass and an oddly serious look on her face. Michael moves to lean against the doorframe and stares for a moment. “Uhhh . . . Are you attempting to pass into an alternate universe or something here?”

“Nope.” Barbara leans over to glare at her fingers, “I read something somewhere, probably Tumblr or whatever, about how if you put your hand like this and your fingers don’t touch your fingers in your reflection it’s two way glass.” She pauses. “Or maybe it was two way glass if your fingers do touch? I don’t remember.”

“Sounds like a load of hooey,” Michael says with a shake of his head.

Barbara shrugs, “Eh, probably.” Drawing her hand back, she arcs her arm overhead and turns on her heal to the perfect position to point at the miniature fridge beside the desk. “Time for drinks!”

Michael arches an eyebrow, “Drinks before food?”

Sidling past him, Barbara opens the little door, grabs something off the bottom shelf, and whips it back across the room at him. Michael barely catches it before it collides with his face, blinking as he realizes it’s a large bag of gummy bears. “There. Food.” Barbara grins at him, and riffles around for another moment before withdrawing a large bottle.

“I regret agreeing to this,” Michael sighs when he reads the label. She picked the most expensive one of the lot to start with. Go figure. “You’re going to bleed me dry.”

Barbara pats him on the cheek when he sighs and sits down on the floor beside her. “Better to be bled dry than high and not so dry outside.” She hikes a thumb towards the rain streaked and pattered window. “Now do you want to use the cute little shot glasses they’ve provided or break out the big plastic cups they’ve got in the bathroom?” Her own decision is already made, apparently, as she’s already prying the bottle open and tipping it towards one of the shot glasses.

“Shots.” Michael grabs a second glass and holds it out. “So that way when I die from alcohol poisoning I can at least go out with a fucking fabulous shot count.”

“Drinkin’ shots on our first night abroad,” Barbara laughs and fills both of their glasses, “Fantastic way to start a vacation.”

“With a hangover,” Michael adds.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Whatever the fuck happens for the rest of the night is forever a god damn mystery, because one second Michael’s tipping the shot glass towards his mouth and the next he’s face down in a pillow and drooling. Blearily he lifts his head, regretting it in an instant as a glaring ray of sunlight hits his eyes. “Furgah!” he groans, face planting back into the pillow and pulling the comforter over his head. It’s then, with his fingers curled into the hem of the blanket while he slowly suffocates in the pillow, that he realizes that this is not the floor Barbara had promised him. What the fuck?

He carefully raises an edge of the comforter and peeks out, surveying the mess the room has become, the empty other half of the bed, and the closed bathroom door. After a few minutes of fuzzy-minded attempts to recall what the hell had gone down after the first shot, the bathroom door opens and Barbara renters the room fully dressed and with a towel around her shoulders. She spots him immediately, most likely due to the fact that Michael drops the edge of the comforter again and tries to feign sleep with way too much wiggling.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Barbara huffs as she sits on the side of the bed, dabbing at her still shower-damp hair with the towel. “You’re in the bed because you spent a freaking half hour whining about how hard the floor was and I took pity on you. Not because we hooked up, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Michael pokes his head out from under the blanket, “I wasn’t thinking that.”

“And yet you were attempting a not so subtle ‘am I still wearing pants’ check when I walked back in the room. Hint: you are. Congrats.” She flops down on the other side of the book and snags her phone off the bedside table. “Anywho, it’s like noon now. Just so you know.”

“Fuck,” Michael groans, pulling the covers back over his head, a feat made a little harder by Barbara laying on half of them. “How late were we up?”

“Dunno. But your bill for the drinks and gummy bears is gonna be higher than the room rate.” She leans over the side of the bed and reemerges with the now empty bag of gummy bears, waving it over the lump under the covers that is Michael. “Sucks for you.”

“How the hell are you not hungover?” Michael growls into the pillow.

“Magic,” Barbara says, clapping her hands and arching them overhead like a rainbow.

Michael groans, “Fuck your magic then. Now close the curtains so I can leave the safety of the blankets and find some ibuprofen.”

In a blatant act of assholery, Barbara does not do as requested and instead hops off the bed and crosses the room to Michael’s duffle on the floor. Michael watches with narrowed eyes as she fishes around in it and holds up the bottle of pills. “You wanted this?” she asks slyly.

Fucking Christ, why the hell had he decided that tagging along with this chick was a smart life choice. She was going to be the death of him. “Yes,” he grits out. “But I get the distinct feeling you’re not going to give it to me, she-devil.”

“Correctomundo!” Barbara smirks. She tosses the bottle from one hand to another before dropping it back into the bag. Something catches her eye as she does so, and Michael can only stare in horror as she reaches in and whips out a pair of his boxers, brandishing them overhead. “Holy shit you have Mario boxers! Nerd!”

“Fucking excuse you, did you miss the huge Zelda tattoos I have on my arms?” he snaps, the retort considerably muffled as he still refuses to emerge from his turtled position under the comforter.

Distracted by the contents of Michael’s bag, Barbara barely gives this comment any attention, muttering a swift, “I elected to ignore them,” before withdrawing another item from the duffle, “Whaaaaat is thiiiiis?” she coos, and Michael rolls his eyes as he spots the iPad in her clutches.

“Are you from Mars?” He pulls the blanket back over his head, re-encasing himself in the blissfully pain-free darkness. “It’s a god damn iPad, buttmunch.” The silence following this is unnerving, and Michael chances a glance only to see Barbara flipping through his pictures.

She sifts through them for a moment more before lifting the screen in Michael’s direction, aware of his eyes on her. “Who’s this?”

Michael blinks at an image of him and Ray at graduation. “Uh, me? I know I’m wearing different clothes there, Barbara, but Jesus-”

“No, dingus, the other guy,” Barbara presses. “He’s in a shit ton of these pics. Like, a good seventy-five percent of them.” She lowers the iPad again and flips through a few more. Michael and Ray at the amusement park. Michael and Ray at the senior picnic. Ray on Michael’s balcony. Ray laying on Michael’s floor with his DS held over his head while he plays. Ray with his fist raised overhead at a concert. Ray stubbornly gripping his cup of water at a party. Ray pointing at a movie poster of a flick they’re about to see at the midnight showing.

Michael swallows hard. “Uh, that’s Ray. Best friend and stuff.”

“And stuff,” Barbara echoes, softly, knowingly.

Fuck.

“It’s not-” he starts and immediately stops when she raises her eyes to him. It’s not a judging look, or even one that suggests she’s daring him to continue to disagree. Her gaze is, god help him, understanding. Somehow, he thinks that’s worse. Michael pulls the blanket back down, “S’stupid,” he grumbles. “S’nothing.”

“That’s cool,” she says. And thankfully, for now at least, that’s that. Michael breathes a sigh of relief.

There’s no time to relax, however, as not a moment later there’s a knock on the door. Michael doesn’t even bother to peek out of the comforter before he whines, “What the fuck! I just want to die in peace here!”

“Pieces, maybe.” Barbara stands, leaving Michael’s duffle open on the carpet, and pats the lump under the covers before sitting on the bed again. “Prepare to die.”

“Wha-”

“Remember my friend?” Barbara smiles. “He texted this morning and said he’d come pick me up. You got a card key?” she calls towards the door.

The answer comes as a distinctive swiping noise of a card sliding through the reader, and a moment later a fumbling rattle of an unresponsive door handle. “Key is minged!” the person on the other side exclaims. Barbara laughs into her hand but makes no move to assist him. The card is swiped again, and a click follows. “Finally!” the guy says as he shoulders the door open. “Can’t even get in to the sodding room I paid for.”

Barbara waves and Michael burrows further into the blankets, suddenly regretting this idea of agreeing to hang out with strangers. “Third wheel,” he whispers into himself. An elbow collides with his back, courtesy of Barbara, and he’s not sure whether that’s a reward for his smart remark or a warning for the second that follows wherein her internet friend takes a fucking flying leap onto the bed and lands directly on top of Michael, thoroughly winding him.

Because he’s too busy _dying_ , Michael misses the yelling and embracing and giggling and whateverthefuck else occurs during the two minutes he’s trying to reinflate his fucking lungs. But it’s a bit hard to miss the part where Barbara’s friend realizes there’s an extra person in the room. Mostly because he knees Michael in the kidney in the process of straddling the blanket lump. “Who’s this then?”

Gulping in a revitalizing breath, Michael rolls over just as the guy pulls back the comforter and he ends up face to . . . Well, face to nose, to be honest. “Excuse me, Mr. Goof,” Michael snarls, “Is it some sort of British custom to greet tourists by repeatedly injuring them?” The guy raises an eyebrow, leaning back enough that Michael can get a full look at him.

Well, Barbara wasn’t wrong, the dude definitely didn’t seem to be some creepy old pedophile. Although Michael’s no expert, and he might have to call in that _To Catch A Predator_ host to double check. All in all, the guy appears to be almost stereotypically British. He’s dressed in an obnoxious purple stripped tee, disturbingly tight jeans, and Michael’s fairly sure he’s seen that hairstyle on a member of that One Direction shit. Not to mention, again, the nose. To reference a movie he will forever deny watching willingly, it’s so big it’s probably full of secrets.

“Michael, Gavin,” Barbara gestures between them. “Gavin, Michael. One of you I met on the internet and the other on the airplane. I think you can figure out which is which.”

Gavin narrows his eyes, “Do I need to give this bloke a talk?” he says lowly, the tone rather unfitting and comical on his person in Michael’s opinion. He snorts and earns a sharp glare from the guy. Oh, it’s on.

“Do you need a talk?” Michael counters, sitting up enough that Gavin’s forced to slide down and sit with his legs on either side of Michael’s knees instead. “Cause I don’t know man, dude she met over the web? Pretty fucking shady.” He folds his arms over his chest.

“I’m not the one sitting in her bed,” Gavin growls.

Barbara seems to decide this is the moment to intervene, and she puts a hand on both of their chests with enough pressure to convey that she can and will shove them apart if need be. “Gentlemen,” she says calmly. “ _Friends_. No one here needs a talk. Michael probably needs some pain pills, but that’s all.”

Slowly, Gavin leans forward. And to Michael’s surprise, Barbara lets him. “Michael, huh?” he says. Michael gives him a curt nod. “Curly mop and frecklies all over.” Michael scowls. Gavin leans closer. “And he’s a good guy?”

Though this question seems to be directed at Barbara, Michael can’t help but reply with, “Good enough to offer her a coat in your stupid English rain while we walked to this shit hotel because you were too much of an asshole to pick her up at the airport.”

Barbara claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a high-pitched shriek of laughter, a response which garners a wry grin from Michael and a contemplative frown from Gavin. “Well then,” Gavin says, sitting up a little. “That is pretty top, I will admit.”

Michael throws his hands in the air, “What the fuck! You’re not even gonna try and defend your own bullshit? I just called you out!”

Rolling his shoulders, Gavin shakes his head, “Nah. No point if you’re correct.”

To Michael’s increasing irritation, Gavin hasn’t budged from being right the fuck on top of him, and no matter how much he shifts around and tries to covertly dislodge the dude, he doesn’t so much as twitch. Actually, scratch that, because when Michael attempts to move his knee up Gavin’s mouth quirks a little. The bastard knows exactly what he’s doing.

That realization is all Michael needs to justify flipping the asshole right off the bed and onto the floor. No jury in the world would convict him. Unfortunately, Gavin’s got quick reflexes, because when Michael does it he snags a hand into the front of Michael’s shirt, a move which sends them both crashing onto the carpet in a tangle of blankets. “What the fuck!” Michael yells, one arm pinning a hysterically laughing Gavin to the floor and the other caught midair by one of the other man’s hands. “What is your problem! First you accost a dude in bed and then-”

“You’re the one who struck first, mate,” Gavin grins. And oh, Michael does not like the cocky way he smiles. It’s annoying as shit. “I just turned it into a little scuff about on the floor.” He shrugs and it takes every ounce of Michael’s self control not to punch the fucker right in the face. Not to mention that he has Michael’s good punching arm in his grip, but that’s besides the point.

Barbara’s head pokes over the side of the mattress. “You know,” she says as she surveys the scene, “This isn’t what I paid for. I paid for a summer vay-cay in England with my idiot internet friend as my tour guide. And I picked up a hitch hiker for shits and giggles.” Michael frowns a bit at the title she’s bestowed him with, but chooses not to comment lest Hitch Hiker be changed to Nincompoop On His Own In London. “So if you two are done fucking around on the floor of this very fine establishment Gav so nicely paid for, I’d like to start the touring.”

In a surprising burst of strength for such a lanky friggin’ weirdo, Gavin manages to dislodge Michael and jump up. “Ah, sorry,” he shuffles his feet a bit, as if actually apologetic, which Michael highly doubts he is. “We were just faffing about.”

Michael snorts, not entirely certain what that expression means but disagreeing regardless. He’s been totally serious in everything he’s said and done since Gavin had stepped (or rather leapt) into the room. Gavin ignores this, very blatantly in fact, by swinging an arm around Barbara’s shoulders and whispering something into her ear that sparks a sharp giggle from her. Well then, this situation is starting to become uncomfortably familiar.

“Look,” Michael says loud enough that there’s no way Gavin can continue to ignore him without Barbara being aware that he’s doing it on purpose. “I should probably get out of here.” He rubs a nervous hand over the back of his neck, already sidling towards his duffle on the floor. There’s no point to sticking around somewhere he’s not wanted, and that’s something he knows all too well. And more or less, that was a big part of the reason he’d decided to come to Europe anyways. He’ll be damned if he ends up in the same stupid scenario he’d run away from.

His fingers have barely touched the handle of his bag when Barbara grabs his arm, pulling him up short. “Whoa there, cowboy. We never said you should go.”

Michael blinks and glances at Gavin over his shoulder. The other man doesn’t so much as glance in his direction, eyes pointedly staring at the wall. Asshole. “I-” he starts, hesitating when he notices how upset Barbara looks by the idea of him leaving. “I don’t want to be in the way,” he falters. “I was the one who dicked off to Europe without a plan. I don’t want to mooch off of yours.”

“You’re not,” Barbara insists. Behind her, Gavin rolls his eyes, something which Micheal doesn’t miss. “We had fun last night! Come on, the more the merrier!”

He debates over whether or not to remind her that he doesn’t remember fuck all from last night, even though that won’t really help him in the slightest. “Well, if you’re sure . . .”

“Positive! You’re totally welcome, right Gavin?” Barbara turns towards Gavin with wide, puppy eyes, and Michael stifles a chuckle when he notices the other man fidget under her imperative stare.

“Er, right . . .”

Michael internally fist pumps.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

_Michael: Found some people to put up with me_

_Ray: Whoa. I’m no longer an endangered species_

_Michael: STFU_

_Ray: <3_

_Ray: So are they cool people?_

_Michael: Rehash. ONE of them puts up with me. She’s great. The other one might try and push me off Big Ben first chance he gets_

_Ray: He probably thinks you’re a cockblock_

_Michael: She has no interest in him whatsoever, which he seems to be aware of. I think he’s just weird and possessive or something. Emphasis on the weird part_

_Ray: ?_

_Michael: What’s the difference between faf and gaf?_

_Ray: Wtf? Those aren’t words_

_Michael: THAT’S WHAT I SAID. Ugh g2g Barbara wants to ride on the top of a double decker_

Michael pockets his phone just before Barbara grabs one of his hands and one of Gavin’s to drag them onto the bus. He doesn’t understand the point of this particular excursion. A cab would be faster, and freaking Clifford The Tall Red Bus isn’t much different from a normal bus. But somehow it’s been unanimously agreed that this is Barbara’s trip, and he and Gavin are just along for the ride; quite literally, at the moment.

“Let’s sit on the edge!” Barbara practically squeals, steering them up the stairs and on to the second floor. And lord, what the ever loving fuck, this bus has an open top. “This doesn’t seem, ah, very safe,” he says as Barbara shoves him into a row, Gavin close behind, before jumping into the one in front of them.

“It’s fine,” she says with a very unreassuring wave of her hand over the side, an action which alerts Michael to the fact that they’re sitting a good ten or more feet off the ground. Jesus Christ. “These things are made for tours and junk, they’re perfectly safe.”

Peering over the side, Michael snaps, “Someone could drop a fucking baby off of here! Kids jumping around could bounce right out! Onto the street! An old person could keel over the edge! How is this safe?!” He pats on the cushion against his back and underneath him, “There’s not even any seatbelts! Even rollercoasters have shit to strap you in with!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Barbara insists. “No one’s ever died on one of these. Right, Gavin?”

Gavin shrugs, “Dunno. I don’t keep up with the news.”

“Wow,” Michael deadpans. “You’re so helpful. You know so much about your country.”

Repositioning himself in his seat so he’s facing Michael, Gavin retorts, “Can you name all fifty states?”

“No,” Michael admits, “But my country isn’t the size of a pea, so that’s acceptable.”

Gavin puts his hands in the air and turns away again with a drawn-out sigh, clearly unwilling to start another fight while Barbara is watching them. Michael decides to go ahead and count it as a win for himself. Awesome.

The bus starts up with a jolt strong enough to make Michael fall back against his seat. He gropes for some sort of support, an arm rest or something, and upon finding none clenches his hands against his knees. “Fucking ridiculous,” he whispers to himself, “You live on the fifteenth floor back home, this is nothing.” One swift glance over the side later at the cars speeding past down below has him adding, “Fifteenth floor has windows though. And doesn’t move.”

“I’ve never even been on one of these,” Gavin says.

Michael doesn’t make any move to respond until he realizes Barbara isn’t paying them any attention, too focused on her phone she’s snapping photos with, and Gavin’s looking at him expectantly. What the hell? Did he miss the part where so far they’ve done nothing but bicker? Michael narrows his eyes, wondering if the other man is trying to start something. “Why not? You live here, don’t you?” he asks, though honestly he doesn’t give a flying fuck.

“Oxfordshire, actually,” Gavin informs him lightly. “That’s why I didn’t pick up Barbara from the airport.”

“I heard you just thought it was too much trouble.”

Gavin laughs, “Ah, yeah. That too.”

What the fuck. This is an actual fucking conversation. Michael arches an eyebrow, utterly bemused by all of this. They were basically wussy-slapping each other all over the place a half hour ago, and now Gavin is trying to make small talk? What the ever loving fuck was he playing at? “Were you dropped on your head as a child?” he blurts out before he can stop himself.

Gavin’s eyebrows furrow a little, “Huh? I don’t know. I mean I did fall and knock myself blind for a few days once, but-”

“You made yourself go blind?”

“Yeah, bumped my head. It was only for a few days, though.” He shrugs it off like it’s nothing, and Michael puts his face in his hands.

“Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Nothing.”

Raising his head again, Michael rests an arm on the edge of the bus, chin on his palm. “Sooooo,” he drawls just long enough to catch Barbara’s attention, and he’s desperate to change the subject. “You’re not American either, are you.” It’s a statement, not a question, and it amuses the shit out of him to see how shocked Barbara looks after it’s uttered.

“Wha - How did you know!? Are you psychic?”

“You say the word ‘out’ weird,” Michael explains. “Also you left your passport on the bedside table last night.” Barbara claps a hand to her mouth. “Canadian, right? Then why did you take a flight out of JFK?”

Barbara huffs out a sigh. “Ah, well see the thing with this trip was my parents would pay for part of it if I went and visited with my dad and half brother for a week before I left. They live in like that weird ritzy part of New York, the not-city part. I didn’t even know there were other parts!” She looks both exasperated and befuddled by this revelation. “So I was stuck in weird rich-people town for a week with this kid brother I barely know. I mean Dylan is a great kid - wait, sorry, _Dylon_ , Dylan is his ‘slave name.’” When Michael’s eyebrows go up she makes the universal “I don’t even know” motion, her hands held out to either side while she shakes her head. “As I was saying, great, but weird.”

Michael’s in the middle of trying to formulate a reply that doesn’t involve an insult (accidentally or otherwise), when Gavin yells, “Ah, lookit! It’s Westminster!” And that’s when Michael finds himself leaning way too far over the edge of the bus with all of the air rapidly escaping his lungs. Via scream. Gavin’s smushing him down into his seat by leaning bodily over him, and Michael flails for a moment before gripping the side of the bus, certain he’s about to fall over while Gavin babbles on obliviously. “That’s where parliament meets, Barbara! Oh, can we stop! I think they have the guards there! The ones with the hats who don’t move? We should go! It’ll be top!”

“Get the fuck off me before I die!” Michael shrieks, taking the risk of letting go of the edge in order to swat at Gavin behind his back. It’s a feeble attempt, and he only succeeds in snagging his fingers in one of Gavin’s shirt sleeves. God fucking damn it. “This was your evil plan all along, wasn’t it, you cocknugget! Push the foreigner off the two story bus to their death and laugh about it while talking like a nonsensical fucking moron! Oh lookit all the blood and smashed up brain matter! Tippity tippy toppers!” He flails a bit as the bus turns a corner, his stomach lurching. “Swiss fucking cheese! A skinny little piece of shit like you shouldn’t weigh this god damn much!” He twists, using his grip on Gavin’s sleeve to finally free himself and quickly pin Gavin to the seat. “Fuck you!” He yells triumphantly.

And then, to Michael’s complete and utter surprise, Gavin laughs. The fucker laughs in his face. What the actual fuck. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snaps, choosing to ignore Barbara’s hiccupping giggles that have begun in lieu of Gavin’s. “Are you actually messed in the head or are you just deliberately stupid? You could have killed me, you fucking idiot! And all for the sake of pointing out a shitty-ass castle in the distance!” Gavin continues to laugh, now breathless and red in the face. For the sake of his own already fraying sanity, Michael sits up and releases him, hands held in the air in submission. “You’re a psycho. You’re psychotic, and you’re freaking me out,” he says. Barbara’s laughter is starting to border a howl at this point, and Michael’s seriously beginning to question his judgment in tagging along with these weirdoes.

Gavin scrubs a hand over his face as he lets out a slow, controlled breath through his nose to stifle the last of his hysterics. “You know,” he says, catching Michael’s attention again, “You’re alright, Michael.”

Michael raises an incredulous eyebrow, “Excuse me?”

“I like you. You’re alright,” Gavin reiterates. “You’re funny.”

Michael points a finger in Barbara’s direction before she can even open her mouth, “Don’t add anything to that. No ‘funny looking’ or nothing.” He turns the finger to Gavin once he’s sure Barbara’s still sufficiently consumed by giggles. “And you, you’re nuts.”

“Thank you,” Gavin grins.

“Not even close to a compliment,” Michael sighs, “Which only proves my point.”

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

At first, Michael wonders if everything Gavin does is an act, a ploy, a farce. And he’s still not entirely convinced it’s not. Part of him wants to ask Barbara because she knows him better, but at the same time he doesn’t want his own viewpoint to be skewed by hers. It’s clear Barbara adores Gavin, she’s constantly hanging off of him and touching him, her arm linked through his, hands curled in the side of his shirt as she tugs him along, her fingers in his hair when she convinces him to let her put a tiny ponytail on top, much to Gavin’s annoyance. Then again she hangs off of Michael too, and they barely know each other. It’s a lesser amount, though that’s mostly because he tends to keep his distance, still not entirely sure how welcome he is.

And Gavin . . . Gavin is just weird. And not, like, normal weird in the way Michael and Barbara were weird. But _weird_ weird.

It’s something about the way he walks, Michael thinks, that odd hop, skip, and trip that enters his steps every now and then for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Or maybe it’s the way he smiles, the quirk of his lips that only upturns one side of his mouth and never quite reaches his eyes. It’s genuine, of that Michael has no doubt, but it’s very far from full. Perhaps it’s the way he dresses, like he crashed through a British boy band’s closet and then somersaulted out the other side and landed on his head at just the right angle to give his hair that mussed up but still oddly pristine look. It might be the way he talks, in fumbles of words that often border the line between coherency and utter nonsense. Half his vocabulary is pulled out of his god damn butt, of that Michael’s sure. Because such idiocy as Gaf, Faf, Munged, and Gubbins are not real words. Not to mention the way he butchers his grammar by putting shit like Sausages and Donuts into sentences that have nothing whatsoever to do with food.

Whatever it is, it pisses Michael off. At first he thinks it’s just because Gavin is an annoying little fuckwad, and as a general rule Michael tends to lose his temper around such people. After a while though - after Westminster and teasing the guards, and Big Ben and counting down the minutes till the hour, and spitting off the top of Tower Bridge - he’s starting to wonder if, god fucking forbid, it’s because he’s enjoying it all.

There’s nothing more aggravating than realizing you’re having fun when you’re trying so hard not to. And boy does he try. He tries not to laugh when Gavin smacks a guard’s black-fuzzed hat. He tries not to join in when Barbara insists they yell out each of the sixty seconds leading up till three-o’clock, but it’s so hard to resist when both her and Gavin are shouting the numbers in between fits of giggles. And he really really tries when Gavin leans over the side of the bridge, toes not even touching the ground, and his tight grip on the rail the only thing keeping him from falling head first into the Thames. “Michael, Micheal,” he says over the roar of traffic, “Micheal, let’s spit in the river.” And his grin is so wide, though it still doesn’t reach his eyes, his hair fluffed up by the wind that whirls past them and down towards the water.

“What’s the point of that?” Michael asks while chancing a look down at the small roils of waves below.

“Ah, I dunno,” Gavin chuckles. “Just to say ya’ve done it I suppose. A story to bring back home to the lads.”

Yeah. It’s probably that.

Michael insists on picking the hotel and paying for it that night, and when Barbara cocks her head at his insistence he mumbles something about making up for the night before. “Technically,” Gavin reminds while Michael’s struggling to figure out how Pounds work at the front desk, “I paid for the place you guys stayed at last night.”

“But Barbara’s the one who put up with me out of the kindness of her heart,” Michael says.

Barbara nods, “I’ve got a heart as big as the English channel.”

“Uh, that’s kinda small, actually,” Gavin says. “Like people swim across it all the time.”

“Exactly.”

Once they get assigned a room Michael’s horrified to discover that he’s flubbed it up and only paid for one king sized bed. “I told the dude at the desk a room for the three of us!” he exclaims while Barbara leans against the wall and howls with laughter. “What the fuck!”

Gavin elbows him on his way in and throws his backpack on the bed, “Mate, I think he assumed some things.” When Michael arches an eyebrow Gavin winks. “Ménage à trois and all that,” he elaborates, “Ya’know?”

The face Michael makes sends Barbara into another round of breathless peals of laughter. “Christ,” Michael grumbles. He moves forward and easily tosses Gavin’s bag off the bed in a single fluid movement, a little pleased when Gavin gapes at him. “Barbara gets the bed then. You and I can fight for floor space.”

“Aw, what?” Gavin whines. “That’s not fair!”

Recovering from her giggle fit, Barbara strides past the pair of them and flops down on the mattress, spreading herself out across it like a starfish. “I agree with Michael,” she hums. “This bed is too comfy to share with peasants such as you.”

“There you go,” Michael says. “I’ll go ask the desk for a couple extra pillows and blankets then.”

Gavin’s high-pitched noises of discontent follow him into the hall, and it takes everything Michael has not to bash his head against a wall. Or rather, Gavin’s head, as halfway to the elevator he discovers that for some god unknown reason the other man has decided to tag along. “I’m just going to the front desk, I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” he growls when Gavin hops into the elevator with him.

“Always the party-pooper,” Gavin sighs. And then before Micheal can stop him he swipes a hand all the way down the button panel, lighting them all up and exiting the elevator with a skip and a leap. “Bye!”

“I fucking hate you!” Michael spits as the elevator doors slide closed, separating him from Gavin’s shit-eating grin and sarcastic wave.

Since the journey down to the lobby is now going to take for-fucking-ever rather than two minutes, Michael pulls out his phone.

_Michael: I hate Barbara’s friend. He’s a douche-canoe_

_Ray: Oh?_

_Michael: I can hear your stupid condescending tone all the way across the ocean, asshole. Don’t “Oh?” me_

_Ray: On a scale of Knee In The Gut to Kick In The Dick, how much of a douche-canoe is he?_

_Michael: Punch in the big stupid nose_

_Ray: Well that’s not too bad. I won a punch in the nose after I told you I was going to see Courtney, and you eventually forgave me_

_Michael: I hit you in the cheek/eye, you fucking moron_

_Ray: You were aiming for the nose. The tears kinda blurred your vision and you missed_

_Ray: . . . ?_

_Ray: Yo dude are we done talking?_

_Ray: Something I said?_

_Ray: Fine. You didn’t cry. You were very manly and feeling-less_

_Michael: Goodnight, Ray_

_Ray: I’m sorry_

Closing his phone, Michael puffs out a quiet, bitter laugh. “No you aren’t,” he murmurs as he slips it back into his pocket. “Can’t be sorry if you don’t even know what you’re supposed to be sorry for.” The elevator dings as it finally hits the ground floor and Michael shuffles out into the lobby and towards the front desk, his cell phone suddenly feeling so much colder and heavier than a little hunk of metal and plastic logically should.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

He should have fucking known Gavin would be a snorer. It’s the nose, and he should have known. If he knew it wouldn’t wake Barbara up he’d have already attempted to knock himself out by smashing his head against the wall.

Alas.

Pulling a pillow over his head does no good, and neither does putting in his headphones. So really, there’s not much point in even trying to sleep because Gavin’s god damn snoring is going to keep him awake until dawn. Eventually, after two hours of staring at the ceiling and wishing some higher power would take pity on him and smite Gavin into silence, he pulls out his laptop. Thank fuck he’d had the foresight to get the internet password when he’d collected the pillows and blankets from the front desk.

The Minecraft window is on his screen and playing its calming muffled music for approximately seven seconds before Gavin sits straight the fuck up, blankets pooling around his waist, and stares at Michael with wide, bleary eyes like some sort of scene from a zombie movie. Michael gives himself a mental pat on the back for managing to hold in the scream that begs to come out of his throat.

“Minecraft,” Gavin mumbles sleepily, and his head turns just enough so he can see the screen of Michael’s laptop.

“What. The. Fuck.” Michael’s eyebrows furrow together, and he’s unsure if he should be scared of or annoyed at Gavin’s fuzzy-eyed gaze. “You were out cold!” he hisses, trying his hardest not to wake Barbara. “I kicked you like three times and you didn’t so much as twitch!”

Gavin ignores him and points at the laptop and the start screen of the game. “You gonna play? You gonna play Minecraft?”

“No! I was just gonna fucking stare at the god damn start menu until I got tired!” Michael throws his hands in the air when Gavin gifts him with the most befuddled look he’s ever seen. “Yeah I’m gonna play Minecraft!” he snaps. “You have some sort of Minecraft-radar or something that made you rise out of the blankets like a vampire out of a coffin? Go the fuck back to sleep!”

Gavin continues to stare at him for a long moment before he leans over to the other side and grabs something. When he sits back up again, Michael’s horrified to see a laptop in his hands. “Let’s play then,” he says, still sounding half-asleep despite the smile that quirks in the corners of his mouth.

“Fucking Christ,” Michael grumbles. He sits there while Gavin opens a server and creates a new world, fingers tapping against the mouse pad. Logically, he could go to sleep right now and probably be out before Gavin could return to his incessant snores. Except his computer is already on and open, the game already loaded, and Gavin’s screen tilted towards him so he can read the server address while he types.

Well fuck it, he might as well.

It takes a little bit for Gavin to fully wake up. Or to be specific, it takes a creeper falling from a ledge right in front of his face and a high-pitched shriek escaping him to wake him up. The speed at which Michael manages to clap his hand over Gavin’s mouth and cut him off before Barbara hears should win him a fucking medal. And the fact that she still doesn’t even stir should win her a freakin’ trophy.

This time, it doesn’t take as long. They’re thirty minutes in when Michael realizes it, when he notices he’s having fun. Once again, it’s frustrating. It makes him stop, blocky little stone sword stilling in his character’s hand while Gavin’s runs on ahead, unaware that his companion has fallen behind. It shouldn’t irk him as much as it does, he knows that. But when half the point of this trip had been to sulk, to wallow in his own self pity, the fact that this idiotic guy keeps fucking that up is nearing the point of being maddening.

**[_Minecraft_ by Space-catss](http://space-catss.tumblr.com/) **

Up ahead on the screen, Gavin slows down and slowly backtracks to where Michael’s still standing. “You tired, Michael? We can give it a rest.” He says it quietly, a whispered reassurance in the darkness between them.

Michael shakes his head and can’t help but cock a smile at the relieved grin Gavin flashes him. “Nah, just zoning out a bit. I’m fine.”

It’s a lie. Not quite one that eats into his gut and threatens to tear him apart, but a lie all the same. A tiny little white lie on top of the mound of lies that lead to him sitting here on a hotel floor with an utter stranger at his side and his phone cold and quiet in his pocket.

And what a relief, what a breath of fresh god damn air it is to tell such a little harmless lie after all the others. Michael rolls his shoulders and refocuses on the game, tilting his character’s head up to see where Gavin is standing a ways up a grassy hill. “You know, that creeper skin scares the shit out of me every time I catch it out of the corner of my eye.”

Gavin laughs, muffling it with the back of his hand. “That’s the point. And what about you? Lookit your smidgy little bear head. At least I’m scary. You’re just adorable.”

Michael growls out a swift, “I’ll show you cute,” before knocking Gavin upside the head with his sword. When Gavin yelps and backpedals, Michael chases him. “Hey! Get back here, asshole! I’ve got some medicine for you!”

“Is the medicine your fists?”

“Possibly. And you know what helps make the medicine go down? A spoonful of shut the fuck up. Boosh!”

He inhales, breath coursing from nose to lungs and out again, a fresh cool pass of air that begins to melt the weight off his shoulders, off his heart, off his mind just a bit. It’s still there, of course, it’s constant. A burdening reminder of every stupid regret.

But for awhile, just awhile, he forgets the reason his phone’s been switched to silent.

It’s hard to remember such things when Gavin’s hushed laughter is ringing in his ears.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Barbara wakes up with her face in her pillow. It takes her a minute to roll over, torn between the clinging feeling of wanting to get more sleep and the desperate need to untangle herself from the blankets and rid herself of the uncomfortable morning heat they’re smothering her with. Once she’s flipped onto her side, covers haphazardly tossed to the end of the bed, she’s met with the sight of Michael and Gavin passed out on the floor, a pair laptops whirring angrily between them. She stares for a moment, dumbstruck by what appears to be the remnants of a late night gaming session between the two, before she sits up and runs a hand through her hair.

“Boys,” she mumbles to herself as she stands. Barbara stretches her arms overhead and crosses the room to the shower, somehow managing to maneuver the obstacle course that is Michael, Gavin, and their various beddings and electronics strewn about on the floor. A light against the dark green carpet catches her gaze for a heartbeat, and she bends to pick a cell phone off the floor and give it a quick glance before tossing it behind her onto the bed.

It’s still there when she emerges from the shower, still lit up and soundless. Though Barbara is never the type to pry, she once more allows her gaze to wander across the screen before setting it aside on the pillow while she towel-dries her hair.

Seven missed calls. Huh.

It’s not any of her business.

When the phone lights up again, flashing the name for what’s probably the eighth time since Michael silenced it, she “accidentally” drops her wet towel over the edge of the bed and onto his face.

Michael flails the second it hits him, hands groping at the air until he finds a hold on the offending item and hurls it off of him. “Wuzzuh?!” he gasps, sitting up and peering around the room.

Barbara wordlessly hands him his glasses from the bedside table. “You’ve got a shit-ton of missed calls.” She holds the phone out to him, smiling when Michael just looks at it as if he’s never seen a phone in his life before. He’s clearly still half asleep. “One from Ray and like a million from a Geoff.”

Blinking, Michael takes the phone and continues to stare blankly at his screen. “Huh?” His mind has ground to a halt in its already slow waking progression, stalled by Barbara’s pronunciation of Gee-off. Who?

Arching an eyebrow, Barbara reaches over and pushes the sound button up a notch so that it vibrates in his hands. “You going to answer that?”

Michael’s eyebrows furrow together as the name flashes on the screen again, and if Barbara didn’t know better she’d think he’d forgotten how to read. But the moment passes, and his expression changes from utter confusion to panic. “Oh! Oh shit! Geoff! Shit, I’m a dick!” He fumbles to answer it, Barbara watching a small frown. “Shit! Sorry! I’m so sorry, Geoff. I meant to call. I did.” He stands and makes a zipping motion over his lips, glaring at Barbara. She swiftly nods her compliance. “Yes, really. You know how spacey I get, dude.”

He paces while he talks, following a path from the foot of the bed to the window and back again, fingers of his free hand brushing over every surface from bedpost to curtain in between. “I know. Yeah. I landed fine. It was raining like dicks when I got off though. Pain in the ass, yeah. Met some nice people to hang wi - No! No, they’re not drug dealers! What the fuck! Why would I hang out with drug dealers? Obviously they’re pimps.” He pauses and laughs, and Barbara’s surprised to hear that the chime of it is different than she’s heard from him before. Genuine, but careful around the edges. Like a child testing the waters of the ocean for the first time. “Yes. I’ll try to call more. I promise it was an accident, really. Like I’d forget on purpose. I’ll send you some pictures, okay? Email them to you and Griff so you can print a few up and frame them or something for the baby’s room.” He falls quiet. “I . . . Uh . . . Yeah.”

And then he hangs up. No goodbye, no farewell or adieu of any sort. It’s startlingly abrupt, at least from where Barbara’s sitting, and the way he holds the phone in hand, thumb rubbing over the now dark screen for a moment makes Barbara wonder why. “Friend?” she asks before she can stop herself.

“Nah,” Michael says, eyes still fixed on the phone. “He’s, uh . . . Kinda a guardian. Well not kinda, I mean . . . Whatever, you know.”

Barbara doesn’t know. At all. But she lets the explanation slide when Michael averts his gaze. “Sure.”

By now Gavin’s begun to stir from his place on the floor. The movement distracts Michael, making him look up again as Gavin curls a little tighter before stretching himself out, hands in front of him like a cat waking from an afternoon nap. “S’mogluhing ahmeamphee?” he says into his pillow.

Michael folds his arms over his chest and snorts. “Excuse me? Was that even English?”

Rolling over just enough to get his face out of the pillow, Gavin repeats, “Is it morning already?”

“It was like dawn when we passed out, fucktard.” Michael waves a hand towards where the laptops are still sitting open on the floor, batteries long died out. “Remember?” Gavin twists around to stare blankly at the screen of his computer, blinking stupidly until Michael sighs and crosses the room to shut it. “Get dressed and pick somewhere good for us to go today. If you haven’t decided on anything before I get out of the shower I’m going to beat you over the head with the travel mag I stole from the plane until you get an idea.”

Gavin rolls onto his back and props himself up onto his elbows to direct a small frown at Michael, “Why do I have to do all the work?”

“You’re the host,” Barbara says without looking up from the task braiding her hair and tying it up. “It’s your job.”

“Buh . . . I don’t want it to be my job! You’re the bloody tourists! Why don’t you decide?”

Michael pauses in the doorway to the bathroom and points a finger at Gavin. “And you’re the tour guide. Now shut the fuck up.”

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The idea should have come to Michael sooner. It really should have. In fact, it should have come before he’d even left the fucking states because, seriously, who doesn’t bring a camera with them on vacation?

But no, the idea pops into his head when they’re walking the few short blocks between their hotel and The National Gallery. To be more specific, the spark of inspiration occurs while they’re passing a little corner store with cameras in the window. Michael pauses as they draw up beside it, eyes catching the gleam of one of the lenses staring back out at him while Barbara and Gavin continue to walk on ahead, oblivious to his stalling. They don’t notice he’s no longer keeping up until Michael’s already ducking into the little shop.

Gavin groans when Barbara points out Michael’s absence. “For Christ’s - what is he doing! The gallery gets crowded in the afternoons and I told him we had to hurry!” They backtrack, and Gavin presses his nose to the window to glare at Michael through the glass, huffing when the other boy gives him a cheeky thumbs up in return and continues examining the cameras in the display without a hitch. “That poncy little-” Gavin cuts himself off with a sigh and puts his head in his hands.

To his right, Barbara raises an eyebrow and levels him with a look. Gavin peeks out at her between his fingers. “What’s that face for.”

“Nothing,” Barbara hums. She waltzes towards the door to the shop, ignoring Gavin’s suspicious glare. Swinging the door open she calls inside, “You almost done? Gav’s getting uppity.”

“I am not!” Gavin stuffs his hands in his pockets with a huff, frowning as Barbara laughs. “You’re uppity,” he mumbles.

Michael emerges from the store a moment later, already ripping into the box containing his purchase. Once it’s open he pockets the direction pamphlet and tosses the packaging in a nearby bin. “I had to get it,” he says as soon as he’s standing in front of them again, shiny new red digital camera held in hand. “It was on sale and it’s perfect.”

He’s peering at the pair of them via the image screen when Barbara pipes up, “You could say it’s picture perfect!” Michael snorts, fumbling with the camera before lowering it.

“Fuck, you guys are going to make me break it before I even use it,” he chuckles.

Gavin rolls his eyes, “Don’t know how you’re planning on using it at the gallery. Pretty sure pictures aren’t allowed.”

Michael blinks, “The place is full of pictures, Gavin.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well then I’ll just have to be sneaky.” Michael loops the camera strap around his wrist and tests its weight with a gentle bounce of the thing against his palm.

“You mean illegal,” Gavin sniffs. He yelps when Michael leans over to poke him in the side.

“No, I mean fun.”

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

At first it’s a game. Michael keeps the camera tucked up into the sleeve of his hoodie, fingers tangled in the strap and the screen resting cool against the inside of his wrist. And he’s not so much interested in snapping photos of the artwork as he is the people, or more specifically, Barbara and Gavin. He takes a good half a dozen candids before they notice, the captured images made up of odd angles and inattentive subjects until Barbara spots an accidental flash out of the corner of her eye. And then it’s all downhill (or maybe uphill) from there.

She palms the camera off Michael on the second floor, and where Michael’s stealthy photos were rather a mess, Barbara has it down to an art form. It’s placed in the top of her purse, and she instantly masters reaching into her bag and tilting it just so to snap one. Her subjects are more varied, consisting of everything from the exhibits to the passerby and, at one point, a security guard. The last one is a daring shot taken while she flirtily inquires about one off the vases on display, one hand sneaking into her purse to take the picture while the flustered guard reads off the plaque to his left.

“Duplicate that,” she dares when she slips the camera back to Michael.

He shakes his head, “Nah. That’s all you.”

“Damn right.”

The next bunch of pictures are a little more direct, a little more thought out as Michael takes the time to frame them as best as he can. He takes into account the lighting, the layout of the room, the shadows, and the people, nodding towards Barbara and the stubborn Gavin to look his way when he snaps them. They’re far from perfect, but that’s not the point. Because as long as the camera is in his hands, he forgets about everything else for awhile.

“Come on, Gavin,” he whispers while they’re standing beside a large, ornately framed piece from some long-ass time ago that Michael doesn’t give a fuck about. “You haven’t smiled for a single picture.”

Gavin shifts a narrow-eyed glare at him, “You’re going to get us arrested.”

“No, I-” Michael stops as Gavin rests a hand on his arm, the other man’s fingers curling into the fabric of his hoodie for a heartbeat.

“You have to be more discrete,” Gavin continues. He slides his hand down Michael’s arm, oblivious to the soft hitch of his companion’s breath when he reaches his hand. Their fingers brush as Gavin slips the camera out of Michael’s sleeve and against his own palm. “Watch.” He turns away then, camera held tight in hand as he starts to circle the room.

Michael watches, confused by the unbroken gait to Gavin’s step as he slowly makes his way around and back to the spot where Michael’s still standing. “You didn’t do anythi . . .” He draws off as Gavin comes to stand directly in front of him, toe to toe and close enough that Michael notices the differences in their heights as he cricks his neck back to meet Gavin’s eyes.

“What was that now?” Gavin smiles. He holds out the camera up, keeping it hidden in the space between their bodies as he tilts the screen in Michael’s direction. Cautiously, Michael takes the camera back, staring down at the picture displayed there, one of a dozen new ones according to the counter in the corner. He jolts a little when Gavin folds his hands over his and thumbs at the side of the screen to flick between the images. Each of them is entirely clean and without the here and there blurs that had popped up in Michael and Barbara’s efforts, as well as being almost perfectly centered. There’s one for every painting in the room and two more of Michael himself, seemingly captured when Gavin had both left his side and returned to it. “You’ve got to practice a bit more, little Michael,” Gavin smirks while Michael gapes at the pictures.

He moves away then, returning to Barbara’s side to look at a piece hanging near the door to the next room without so much as a backwards glance in Michael’s direction.

And Michael, well, Michael stares after him, camera clutched tightly between his hands as he ignores the slight, barely-there tremble of his fingers, the heat in his cheeks, and the stuttering drum-tap in his chest.

What. The. Fuck.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

At first, Barbara thinks Michael’s sudden quietness is due to his first super-charged encounter with Gavin. She’s seen the way it works on girls, many times in fact as being friends with Gavin over the internet has earned her a good handful of backlash on the forums from girls who had ill-advised, long-distance crushes on the guy. They assume things, and no matter how much she disputes them they still keep coming back to bug the shit out of her. So yeah, she knows how the usual first encounter with Gavin goes for people. And she knows how to deal with said people reeling from such an experience.

Except that’s not an issue with Michael. On closer inspection, she realizes that Michael has already moved past the moment, letting it roll off his shoulders like water off a duck’s back. Whatever brief intermission Gavin had created in his thoughts was just that, brief. Once it was over he withdrew, and did so much more obviously than he had before. The camera gets placed in a back pocket, and Michael shuffles behind them through the rest of the gallery with his hands fisted into the front of his hoodie. Every once in awhile, Barbara catches him glancing at his phone, thumb running over the darkened screen before he pockets it again. It’s not an unusual motion, hardly anything to be taken note of as he’s a tourist whose only link home is a cellphone. Barbara herself has already called and texted people back home a dozen or so times.

Except that Michael’s phone is clearly off. He’s not texting or calling anyone, let alone receiving any messages of any kind. Yet, every time Barbara looks at him, he has the phone in his hand.

“Need a charge?” she asks over a late lunch in the gallery café. When Michael looks confused, she points to the still dark phone sitting next to his plate. “You’ve been clinging to that thing for like an hour. Are you waiting for a call?”

Michael smiles, though from where Barbara is sitting the expression seems oddly strained. “Oh. Nah. It’s just off. Trying to enjoy the day out without interruptions and stuff.” He shrugs. “Holding it is just a nervous habit.”

It’s a logical explanation, one that plays to the patterns of the modern day wherein a bout of sudden boredom or an uncomfortable atmosphere is an automatic excuse to stare at one’s phone. But Barbara’s not buying it. The way Michael shifts his gaze away when he brushes off her concern, the listless way he keeps his grip on the phone, as if it has an actual significant weight to it, and the subtle, unconscious way he bites his lip every time he looks at the screen are like flashing neon signs. Except pushing it now might end badly, so for the rest of their museum trip Barbara lets the matter drop.

The second they’re outside the building however, she grabs Michael by the arm. “You seem like a fairly fashionable guy,” she says, fingers digging onto him when Michael’s eyes widen with confusion and mild panic. “Want to help me pick out a new top for tonight?”

“Not rea-”

“Great!” Barbara starts to drag him down the street in the direction of a shopping strip. Gavin makes to follow, a concerned frown on his face when Michael unsuccessfully tries to disengage himself from Barbara. “Not you,” she says swiftly, pointing a warning finger when she notices him trailing in their wake. “You go look around for a good, decently classy club or bar we can go to this evening. No stripper joints. Got it?”

He hesitates at first, eyes darting between Michael’s pleading expression and Barbara’s alarmingly foreboding one before giving Michael an apologetic smile. “Got it. Meet back at the hotel around eight then?” Barbara nods. “Top. See you later.” And then he flees fast as possible.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I,” Michael whines when Barbara continues down the sidewalk, still dragging him along with her nails digging into the soft spot on the inside of his elbow. “It’s one of those dumb foreigner gets killed while abroad sort of plots.”

“Don’t be such a fucking wuss.” Barbara steers him into a clothing store with wide window displays featuring a menagerie of summer styles. Getting him into the revolving door is quite a feet considering that Michael digs his heels in the entire way. “We’re just going shopping.”

Michael swallows, “And then you’re going to gut me.”

“Metaphorically,” Barbara concedes, much to Michael’s horror. “But instead of intestines, I’ll make you spill feelings.”

“That’s worse.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

Although she makes her plan clear to him upon entering the boutique, Barbara doesn’t make good on it for quite awhile. In the meantime, Michael finds himself using his arms as racks for the various tops Barbara picks out. And with the looming threat of being emotionally gutted hanging over his head, he doesn’t dare complain about how the metal hangers are extremely uncomfortable. Hell, he doesn’t even suggest getting a basket or a cart or whatever the fuck people use when shopping in specialty clothing outlets. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all. The longer he keeps quiet, he figures, the more likely she’ll become absorbed in shopping and forget about torturing him.

Alas.

It happens when she’s in the changing room, tossing things over the partition to where Michael is sitting on a plush bench just outside. “So,” she says slowly, the single word all the warning Michael gets before she launches into her interrogation. “Why’s the phone off?”

Michael’s silent for a heartbeat, weighing his options before muttering, “You’re not going to take the ‘trying to enjoy myself without interruptions’ excuse again, are you?”

“Nope.” She throws another shirt to him, and Michael stalls while he moves to hang it on the restock rack by the dressing room entrance. Technically, he could bolt for it right now and avoid this bullshit all together, leave Barbara here and carry on his merry way for the rest of the summer. Alone. But the thought of spending the remaining summer months in solitude make him just a little more ill than the current conversation does. Returning to stand outside the door she’s behind, Michael says, “I’m ignoring someone.”

“Ray?” Michael huffs out a soft, affirming sound, and Barbara continues. “He’s the one who was supposed to come on this trip with you, right? And then he-”

“Dicked out on me,” Michael finishes, “Yeah.”

Barbara tosses him another not-quite-right shirt, waiting until he returns to hovering just outside the door before going on. “Mind if I ask for the full story? I mean, I can fill in a lot for myself, just with intuitive guessing and stuff, but . . .” She tugs on another top, pale blue with an intricate swirl of floral up the right side and a decent but not too revealing v-neck. Not bad. Michael starts a bit when she opens the door and walks out to show it off. “How’s this one?”

She watches as he gives her a lingering once-over and slowly raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t there another one just like that in the pile of shit you picked out with slits along the stomach and shoulders?” He jerks his head towards the dozen or so tops still hanging in the dressing room. “If we’re going clubbing, you might as well go all out.”

Grinning, Barbara claps him on the shoulder as she ducks back in, “Right you are.” She rifles through the remaining shirts until she finds the one Michael mentioned. “As I was saying,” she says while she changes, “I can infer to my heart’s content. So if you don’t want to share, that’s fine. But I’ve always thought it was better to talk to someone about crap like that than to keep it all bottled up.” Her hands smooth out the front of the shirt, careful not to catch on the cuts across the stomach of it as she admires herself in the mirror. “Bottling feelings isn’t healthy, though,” she adds as she reemerges. “Just so you know.”

Michael’s sitting on the bench again, hands folded around the phone he holds in his lap. “You’re saying I’m allowed to resist this Spanish Inquisition?” he asks when Barbara takes a seat beside him.

“I’m not your freakin’ therapist.” Barbara says with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not my job to get you to spill dark secrets and stuff. But,” she puts a finger up, tapping it once against Michael’s nose and smiling when he wrinkles it I surprise. “I am your friend.” He breaks eye contact with her, pointedly staring down at his phone. After a moment, Barbara reaches for it, one hand folding over his across the screen. “May I?” Michael nods and she takes it from him, noting the way his fingers stiffly uncurl from around it. It takes her a second to locate the power button, and she waits for it to boot up with Michael fidgeting at her side.

Almost instantly it begins to vibrate in her hand as it receives alert after alert. Text and missed call bubbles appear on the screen, one right after the other until there’s too many to occupy such a small space and the older ones begin to retreat under newer notifications. When Michael makes no move to protest or stop her, Barbara begins to pick through them, eyes skimming over each message before moving on to the next. “He’s worried about you.” She glances over at Michael when she speaks, and in turn he keeps his gaze fixed on his hands fisted in his lap. Barbara flicks a new message onto the screen and reads, “‘ _Come on, man. You’re freaking me out. Just text back so I know you didn’t get hit by a double-decker_.’” Barbara smiles, “This next one is signed LU. That’s ‘love you,’ righ-”

“Don’t read anymore.” Michael pushes the phone down, covering the screen with his palm before he brings it to rest on the bench between them. There’s a tremble in his frame as he speaks, a barely there shiver that leaves his gaze downcast and his knuckles on the opposite hand bone white where he curls his fingers into the knee of his jeans. “Please.”

And, oh, there it is, the little concealed agony that Barbara had guessed since he’d sat down beside her on the plane, and suspected since seeing the pictures on his tablet. “Not quite the same meaning as you want, is it,” she says quietly.

Michael stiffly shakes his head, “It’s fucking stupid.”

“No.”

“It is, though,” he insists, still not looking up. “I know everyone feels like that about a friend at some point but I’m the asshole that actually thought - We planned a fucking trip together, you know? We were gonna spend the entire summer dicking around through Europe and I thought maybe . . .” He sighs, letting go of the phone to run a hand through his hair. “We’re gonna go our separate ways come fall. Ray got accepted into a tech school that specializes in game design and I . . . I’m just a fuckup who doesn’t know what I want. I don’t have any plans, no schools or jobs lined up. Somewhere in the back of my head I thought this trip was my last chance and . . . And then everything might fall into place.”

“Why didn’t he come?” Barbara prompts gently. “Did he find out?”

Michael snorts, “Ha. No. That probably would have been better. Ray’s a good guy, even if he didn’t, ya’know, he wouldn’t turn it into a big deal. He wouldn’t have canceled the trip. He, uh . . . He decided to spend the summer with his new girlfriend.”

Barbara winces. “Ouch.”

“Yeah,” Michael pulls a wry little smile. “Ouch for both of us. I kinda decked him when he told me.” He laughs when Barbara claps a hand to her mouth. “He thought it was just cause he was ditching me, but it was more because I was mad. Not at him, really, that would be ten kinds of fucking stupid. Can’t be mad at someone for not returning feelings, that’s just dumb. I was mad at myself for letting him slip through my fingers, mad that I’d ever even hoped because, let’s be real, I knew all along he’d never . . . I just took it out on him. And I’m still mad.” He reaches to lift the phone off the bench and slides it back into his pocket. “But that’s not why I’m ignoring him.”

Barbara blinks in realization. “You’re trying to distance yourself.”

“Just until it stings a little less,” he nods. “I’ll get over it, of course. Hell, I already am. I just . . . I need a bit more time until I can talk to him without feeling like a complete asswipe.”

He huffs as Barbara suddenly launches herself at him with enough force to make him fall back against the bench seat as she wraps him in a tight hug. “Wha-”

“You’re a good guy too, Michael,” she says into his shoulder, squeezing him a little harder.

“ . . . Yeah?”

“Definitely.” Barbara hugs him for a moment more before sitting up and brushing her hands down the front of her shirt. “Right then. I’m going to buy this, and then we’re going to party. Got it? And the legal age is eighteen here so we’re gonna get you fucking hammered.”

“Uh-”

“No complaints,” Barbara silences him. “We’re going out on the town, and you’re going to have the time of your life and not think about your horribly broken heart for awhile.”

“I would have said ‘mildly sore’ but ‘horribly broken’ has a better ring to it,” Michael deadpans.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

To be honest, Michael hadn’t packed with the intention of trying to impress anyone. Hell, he hadn’t packed with the thought that he’d find himself in a club with other people his own age. Initially, he and Ray had been planning on backpacking, and after that fell through Michael had just thrown together whatever clothes he could find in his room that weren’t dirty, AKA t-shirts, jeans, the odd pair of shorts, and a couple different hoodies. And once Barbara had dumped all of the above onto the hotel bed, he realized how woefully ill-suited they were for the club environment.

Barbara picks through them with terrifying speed, examining each article of clothing for less than a second before casting it aside. Finally, she holds up a pair of black jeans to Michael, “Wear these.”

Michael eyes them, “Those were packed by accident. They’re a bit too tight.”

“Exactly.” She hands them to him and hops off the bed to retrieve her own bag from the floor. “And for a shirt, I think this will work.” To Michael’s horror, she whips out a navy-blue v-neck and brandishes it at him.

“That’s a girl’s shirt.”

“Girly-fit,” Barbara corrects sternly. “It’s a person’s shirt. Now go get dressed.”

“But Gavin’s just wearing that stupid purple striped shirt!” Michael protests. “Why do I have to-” Barbara points at the bathroom with an arched, challenging eyebrow, and Michael shuts up.

The club Gavin chooses thankfully meets all the requirements Barbara had asked for. It’s not too crowded, not too classy, and not too sleazy. Hell, there’s not even a bouncer at the door, and Michael can’t tell if that’s just because this isn’t that sort of place or if it’s not as customary overseas. Either way, it makes the club seem a little less intimidating.

The three of them take seats at the bar, Gavin chattering on about how there’s no point in hitting the dance floor until they “have a few bevs” in them, to which Michael can agree. He’s never been much for dancing. There’s another group a little further down the bar, a girl and two guys, the tallest of which already looks to be well on his way to gone as he sways on his stool. Michael glances at them out of the corner of his eyes and mutters, “Christ, it’s not even ten yet.”

Barbara follows his line of sight and snickers into her drink as the guy Michael’s indicating nearly tilts right off his seat. “He’s just having fun,” she smirks. “Like you should be.”

“That’s a dangerous level of fun,” Michael says.

“Looks top,” Gavin chimes in, and when Michael and Barbara turn to look at him he downs the rest of his drink. “Buzzed,” he says after a pause, grinning when Michael gapes at him. “Order another round, yeah?” He hops off his stool and disappears onto the dance floor.

Barbara stares after him for a second, and then turns to Michael, “See? That’s fun. Gavin’s having a blast.” She jerks a thumb behind her, and Michael can just barely make out the man in question doing a dance which appears to be some sort of imitation of a noodle at the center of the floor. “It’s summer, Michael. It’s time to cut loose.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the dictionary definition of summer,” Michael says.

“You know what I mean.” Barbara elbows him. “Look just get off the stool at some point, okay? Go talk to someone or dance a little.” She slides off her seat and makes to go join Gavin in the midst of the writhing throng of people. “I’ll check on you in ten, and if you’re still sitting here when I get back you have to do two shots of my choosing.” Michael grimaces, and when she points to his drink he dutifully downs the rest of it, watching with amusement as she skips her way under the flashing lights.

Unfortunately, neither the prospects of dancing or chatting with strangers appeal much to him. He keeps a close eye on the time as he orders another drink and sips at it, careful to heed Barbara’s warning. After eight minutes, he begins to glance around the room, desperate to avoid whatever nastiness Barbara will cook up for him to drink (and with the death glares she’s periodically giving him from the dance floor, he has no doubt they’ll be foul). It’s then that he catches the eyes of the girl in the group further down the bar.

She seems to be studiously avoiding looking at her two companions, who now appear to be equally tipsy and on the verge of making fools of themselves. They lock eyes for a moment, and apparently that’s all the invitation she needs to jump off her stool and walk on over. She takes the seat to Michael’s left, to which Michael has no protests because god damn, she’s gorgeous. When he clears his throat, she looks up at him, sea-blue eyes peeking out underneath auburn hair. “You don’t mind if I hang here, right?” she asks belatedly. “My friends are kind of being dorks over there, and I don’t feel like being associated with them at the moment.”

Huh. No accent. “American?” Michael asks, honestly surprised.

Her eyes light up at his own noticeable lack of British twang. “Hell yeah! Texas, to be specific.”

“New York,” Michael replies. He holds out his free hand to her. “I’m Michael, by the way.”

“Lindsay,” she returns. “So is this seat free? I saw that pretty blond over here earlier . . .”

“Barbara,” Michael says. “And she’s the one who told me not to be a party pooper and go fucking talk to people so she shouldn’t give a shit.” Lindsay chuckles and motions at the bartender for another drink. “Anyways, what brings you all the way here from Texas?” He’s never been good at small talk, and Michael fumbles a bit when he asks, not quite sure what to say or where to start.

“Senior trip,” Lindsay sighs. “So far it’s kind of a disaster. She glances down the bar, “And here comes disaster number one and two right now.”

Michael looks over her shoulder to spot her two friends stumbling over to them, giggling and leaning on each other in a way that definitely edges on something other than friendly. Oh geeze. The taller of the pair, dark-haired with the scruffy beginnings of a beard, almost trips right into Lindsay, who in turn holds him up with a hand to his chest with ease, her lips pursed in annoyance. “Miles. Seriously, you’ve had three drinks. Three. You’re pathetic.”

“Four,” Miles slurs. “Kerry’s had five.” He points to the other, shorter man leaning against his back, hands in Miles’ front pockets. The aforementioned Kerry laughs when Miles’ finger pokes him, and he rubs his chestnut-haired head against the back of Miles’s shoulders.

Lindsay rolls her eyes, and swivels on her stool to face Michael again, “Michael, these are my nincompoops, Kerry and Miles. Nincompoops, this is Michael. He’s from New York.”

At this Miles and Kerry both perk up a bit, Miles’ eyes going wide. “The writers’ city!” he gasps. “It’s like my dream to live there!”

“Is it magical?” Kerry asks blearily.

“It’s a piece of shit,” Michael says. “But yeah, sure, it’s magical.” Miles gleefully claps his hands together, and Michael leans over to whisper, “As magical as the Hogwarts bathrooms,” to Lindsay, who chuckles in response.

Miles is trying to pry Kerry off of him now, a clearly futile effort because Kerry is doing his best to imitate an octopus. “We’re supposed to be meeting a friend here,” he explains to Michael, because apparently being introduced to someone gives you the leeway to spill your whole fucking life story to them. Fantastic. Michael sips his drink and tries not to look too disinterested. “Guy from online I’ve known for a few years. He does these awesome animations and when I said we’d be coming to London he agreed to meet us at a club.”

“Aces,” Michael says.

“Right? But he hasn’t shown up yet. He’s studying abroad at a campus nearby, so maybe he’s at a late class or something.”

Michael glances at his watch, mentally noting that it’s nearly ten before Lindsay whispers, “Very late class,” sarcastically in his ear. “The number of drinks each of them has had is equal to the level of nervousness they’ve built up attributed to this guy being late.”

Seeming to catch on to the vein of their whispered conversation, Miles’ protests, “He’ll be here! He promised!”

Raising a glass to them, Michael assures a quick, “Of course he will.”

“You guys are worse than girls on a blind date,” Lindsay sighs, turning back to the bar and her half finished drink. “Go wallow somewhere else where you won’t bring the rest of us lonely assholes down any further.” Michael frowns as he realizes she’s just implied he’s a lonely asshole, but seeing as it’s currently a true statement he hasn’t the heart to refute her. “Also,” she points towards the door, “That looks like your guy.”

Michael follows the line of her finger to spot what has to be the most well dressed man he’s every seen in his life, sporting high cheek bones, ungodly tight pants, a white suit jacket, and what appears to be a blond wig. He turns just in time to see Miles trip a bit on his way to the front, and Kerry stumble after him with a whine of, “Miles, wait!”

“Look away,” Lindsay warns as the pair reaches the newcomer. “Or suffer the sight of an abhorring amount of gay.”

Laughing, Michael does as he’s told and faces Lindsay again. “So,” he starts, ignoring the high squeal somewhere behind him that, judging from Lindsay’s constipated expression, has to be Miles and/or Kerry. “You said ‘Us lonely assholes.”

“Correct.”

“Which implies you’re also a lonely asshole.”

“Yep.”

Absolutely no thought goes into his actions as Michael holds out a hand to her. Thought would mean his mind taking a moment to linger on his phone in his pocket, on New York, on Ray, on Courtney, or on the fist-to-face that lead him to sitting on this barstool in a club in the middle of London. The buzz in his mind doesn’t allow any room for thought, it sharpens his sight and narrows his vision until he can only focus on what’s right in front of him. “Since we’re both lonely assholes then, wanna dance?”

Lindsay smiles and takes his hand. “Yeah,” she says, “That’d be great.”

When he was young, Michael had thought that every touch must have a spark. It’s what he’d been taught to believe because of movies and fairytales and motherfucking Disney flicks. He’s more than old enough now to know that’s not quite true. Characters feel the spark igniting between them the second they make contact, sometimes even before, like a static shock passing from one to the other, swift and sharp and shuddering and breathless. People don’t.

There certainly hadn’t been a spark with Ray. He’d felt nothing but extreme annoyance when Geoff had pushed the other boy towards Michael with a, “Found this little shitnugget drawing on the walls outside our door. He lives somewhere in the building. Be friends.” A few years down the road, Michael had discovered the horrors of stomach-dwelling butterflies, but never a spark. And his first kiss with a girl during the sixth grade had been more of a nervous disaster than that romantic, electrical charge promised to him by mass media. Sparks didn’t exist, they were nothing but fantasy.

Warmth, though. Warmth exists. And when Lindsay takes Michael’s hand and lets him lead her onto the dance floor, it’s comforting and warm. Like the embers of the last bits of a campfire, still hot enough to keep the chill out of your bones. However, no matter how much Michael knows sparks aren’t real, the warmth is somehow lacking, as if the sense-memory of his skin recalls something else, something recent and dangerously close to that longed for electrical charge, and knows this isn’t it.

Right now though, Michael honestly doesn’t give a flying fuck. He brushes the feeling off, dismissing it as a weird effect of the alcohol in his blood. There’s no point in grasping at straws and not-quite-solid memories when he has a beautiful girl in front of him.

Lindsay’s a rather wild dancer. Not in the party-girl way, but rather in the all-over-the-place way. It’s just as amusing as it is captivating, and Michael finds himself grinning more than once when they catch each other’s eyes beneath the haze and flash of colored lights. The majority of those around them seem to be all about the bump and grind, though Michael takes very little notice, his attention focused on the way Lindsay laughs when he twirls her under his arm. It’s uncoordinated, breathless fun that allows every bit of piled up worry and self-pity to sink back out of the forefront of his mind. There’s no spark, to zing or twinge of a shock when his hand finds the small of Lindsay’s back so he can dip her with bubbles of laughter between them, no charge or bolt when she teaches him how to do something called “The Sprinkler” (apparently it’s a dance move?) by straightening out his arm, the pads of her fingers on the inside of his elbow.

So yeah, there’s no spark, no breath or heart hitch or frantic beating of butterfly wings in his stomach, but somehow that’s better. All of those things, as far as he’s concerned, never seem to end well. He’s comfortable with Lindsay, there’s no need for middle-school-esque heart palpitations. And with comfort comes confidence, enough so that he doesn’t spend minutes or even seconds agonizing over whether or not to put his hands on her waist during a song or two.

Too bad neither comfort nor confidence are barriers against annoying friends. It’s a miracle that they weren’t interrupted before, so Michael has a hard time being too pissed when he did get a solid amount of peace like Barbara had promised. He’d sort of expected Gavin to be the one to crash the party (you know, the party of two lonely assholes dicking around on the dance floor), and he’s honestly surprised when it’s Barbara who karate-chops her way in between him and Lindsay. Literally.

The “Hiyah!” sound Michael’s sure Barbara makes gets lost in the overly loud music, her next few words, unfortunately, do not. “Sup, bitches! Michael, you actually got off the stool! I didn’t really check you know,” she cocks a sly smile, “Got distracted by all the hot butts in here. Speaking of,” whirling around and patently ignoring Michael rubbing at the wrist she’d tried to demolish a few seconds prior, she turns to Lindsay, “You found quite the cutie! Introduce me!”

Michael purses his lips as he processes her request, unable to determine if she wants an introduction or an _introduction_. He goes for the former. “Uh, sorry. Barbara, this is Lindsay. Lindsay, this is Barbara.” He gestures between them with his un-bruised hand.

There’s exactly three seconds, too little time to make any accurate observations about the appraising look Barbara gives the other girl, before Michael is caught off guard once again, perhaps more alarmingly so this time, as an arm encircles him from behind and fingers fall to rest against that soft space between rib and hip. Oh god, what the fuck. It’s only the slurred, unique speech pattern that would make any English major cry that stops him. “Aw, Michael. Introducing people all over the gaff and you forgot me!”

Tilting his head back, Michael narrows his eyes at the one and only, very-obviously-drunk-out-of-his-mind Gavin Free. “Because you’re a fuckwad and I don’t like you,” he states without remorse, hoping to god it will be enough to make Gavin stop bad-touching him. In front of Lindsay, too. God damn it all, what was wrong with this British asswipe? To his shock, it only makes Gavin’s grip tighten. It’s subtle, so much so that Michael’s not even entirely sure the girls have noticed Gavin’s hand on him, but it’s just enough to send an uncomfortable jolt straight to his gut. What. The. _Fuck_.

“Michael,” Gavin whines, leaning closer so that he’s all but pressed against Michael’s side. And, yep, he’s just as drunk as Michael thought, his entire being reeks of alcohol, which is saying something considering that it’s enough to stand out in a crowd of people who all smell like varying shades of inebriated. “Michael, you can’t leave a chap out of the loop, that’s bad manners.”

“Bad manners is invading people’s personal bubbles without express permission,” Michael berates. Still, he makes no move to dislodge Gavin, as doing so would draw more attention to the matter than he’d like. Plus, he gets the feeling that if he did it would only increase Gavin’s bitching ten fold, and that’s not something he feels like dealing with. Ever.

Lindsay’s laughing into a hand, sharing an amused look with Barbara that Michael spots in his peripherals. It’s a look that screams danger, and if Michael didn’t know better, he’d swear a rush of adrenaline hit him the second he noticed it. The feeling of impending fuckery was on the horrizon, and sweet Jesus, he was doomed.

“Gavin,” he says, unnecessarily slow to accommodate Gavin’s currently impaired brain functions (though to be honest, Michael’s willing to be money they’re permanently impaired), “This is Lindsay. She’s from the states, like me. Lindsay, this is fucking Gavin.”

A soft snort escapes Lindsay, and she covers her mouth again to hide it. “‘Fucking Gavin?’ Is that his full name?”

“That’s Sir Fucking Gavin to you,” Gavin hiccups.

This time, the response forces a smile onto each of them, one which Michael struggles to fight back down. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t been knighted, and I highly doubt you ever will be,” he points out.

Gavin scoffs, “And what do you know, Michael? You’re one of those ‘cross the pond blokes! All us lovely gentlemen are knighted upon birth around here.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’ve got a sword and . . . And everything!” Gavin insists. “I’ll show you!”

Michael unsubtly lets his eyes trail downwards for a moment before tilting his head back up to give Gavin a skeptical look, “Please don’t. I don’t know how you weirdos conduct yourselves, but in America it’s considered rude and tactless to whip out ‘swords’ in public.”

Gavin stares at him for a long second, clearly out of the loop despite Lindsay and Barbara’s choking laughter. “I don’t actually have a sword,” he says after a pause. “Don’t know anyone who does, really. I’ve got a sonic somewhere though!”

Whatever the fuck a “sonic” is (the only Sonic that comes to mind for him is a hedgehog), Michael would really rather not know. “That’s nice,” he says with a patronizing pat to Gavin’s shoulder, specifically the one attached to the arm currently doing its best to dismantle every rule of “Don’t touch me there, that’s my no-no square,” that Michael knows of. And oddly enough, it works, or at least it does just enough for Michael to edge the perfect distance away so that Gavin’s hand is dislodged from his side. Glory glory halle-freaking-luiah.

Except that Gavin secret power is apparently turning into a fucking octopus when drunk, because it’s only a matter of milliseconds before he’s repositioned himself behind Michael and draped his arms across the other boy’s shoulders as a means of support. “Help me,” Michael mouths at Barbara, who, god damn her, just shrugs and shoots him a broad smile.

Lindsay though, thank fuck, is a lifesaver, and responds to his pleas with, “Maybe we should get Gavin some water. He looks really out of that and it’ll bite him in the ass come morning.” She hikes a thumb over her shoulder towards where they last saw Miles, Kerry, and their mysterious special friend. “My boys, too. They’re a couple of babies and I don’t feel like holding their hair up in the morning while they blow chunks in the hotel bathroom.”

Barbara cranes up on her tiptoes, peering into the masses to try and spot who Lindsay is indicating. “ _Your_ boys? Are you some kind of lady pimp? Because that sounds awesome.”

“Ha, no,” Lindsay smiles, “I’m just the closest thing to a chaperone those nincompoops have. And god, do they need a chaperone on these misadventures.” Barbara’s still standing on tiptoe to try and see over the heads of the dozens of people around them, only dropping down again when Lindsay reaches over and takes her hand. “I think I heard Miles’ telltale screech over there a few minutes ago,” she points towards the bar, “I’ll introduce you.”

A slow, careful little smile works it’s way from one corner of Barbara’s mouth to the other. “Okay. Let me buy you a drink, too. Anyone who puts up with Michael for more than five minutes deserves one.”

And, Christ, Michael may not believe in sparks anymore, but if the way Barbara’s eyes lit up when Lindsay took her hand is anything to go by, he’s sure he just witnessed something pretty damn close to one.

Which, unfortunately, means that his dance partner was just whisked away for the foreseeable future. “Well, fuck,” he mutters. He gives them a head start out of courtesy before hauling Gavin’s delirious ass towards the bar on his lonesome. And for someone so skinny and lanky, Gavin weighs way more than he should, and he’s lucky Michael doesn’t just drop him in the middle of the club and let someone else deal with him. He’s positive some girl would come along within minutes and all responsibility would pass from Michael to her and thus free him of the currently literal burden of Gavin Free.

He dumps Gavin onto the nearest barstool, which just so happens to be right next to the one occupied by Miles and Kerry’s mysterious special friend. Up close, Michael notes that the attention he got from the pair wasn’t at all unwarranted. The guy looks like a fucking model, and with the realistic, probably expensive wig that would pass for his real hair to the casual eye, Michael has to wonder if that’s actually his job. The man’s attention is entirely taken up by Miles and Kerry, who seem surprisingly more sober than when Michael last saw them, and are chatting animatedly with him. Michael props Gavin up on the stool, arranging his arms on the surface of the bar in a way that will hopefully keep him upright while he fetches a few glasses of water from the bartender.

It does not. When Michael returns a few short minutes later, Gavin is face down on the bar and grinning manically against the hardwood. Well then. “Here.” Michael pushes him upright again, placing one of the glasses against Gavin’s palm until his fingers wrap around it of their own accord. “Drink this, you’ll feel better.”

Gavin stares at the water, then at Michael, a lopsided smile on his face. “Thank you, Michael. You’re so nice.”

“The nicest,” Michael huffs. “Now drink, stupid.” He waits until Gavin has drained the first glass before handing him another. This time, Gavin picks it up without problem, sitting a little straighter and swaying a lot less.

“You know what would top this off?” Gavin says as he crunches on an ice cube. “A bev.”

Michael rolls his eyes and motions for the bartender, pointing at Gavin, “No more for him, got it? He’s cut off for the rest of the night.”

The bartender nods and Gavin squeaks, appalled. “Michael! That’s not fair!”

“I’m not going to drag your ass back to the hotel.” Michael crosses his arms over his chest, refusing to budge on the matter.

“Not necessary,” Barbara calls down to them a few seats over. “I’m commandeering the hotel for the rest of the night. You’re not invited.”

It just keeps getting better and better.

“What?!” Michael gapes at her. “What are Gav and I supposed to do then? Sleep in the hall?”

“Get a different room?” Barbara shrugs. “You can come back tomorrow if you want, but Lindsay and I are going to have a girls’ night away from all this gross testosterone.” She gets off her stool and holds out a hand to Michael, Lindsay close behind and sipping at the last of a some sort of fizzy pink drink. “Key, please. I don’t need you dicks busting in later.” Suspicious, Michael grudgingly hands over the cardkey, not daring to ask exactly what sort of girls’ night this is (there’s two options he can think of, teen movie style sleepover or _college_ movie style sleepover). Barbara reads him like a book though, and leans over to kiss him on the cheek as she passes, whispering a taunting, “Wouldn’t you like to know,” into his ear.

Michael’s still staring down at his hand sans cardkey, mind a bit shorted out by Barbara’s departing words, when he realizes what the full extent being kicked out of the room means. “Oh god, I’m stuck with Gavin.”

“Yay!” Gavin pipes up from his stool, now slightly less wobbly and drunk, but still a giant pain in Michael’s ass.

“You can have our room,” Miles says suddenly. He already has the key in hand, held out obligingly in Michael’s direction. “Since Lindsay’s not going to be there and stuff.”

Michael quirks an eyebrow, “You’re not going to use it?”

Really, he shouldn’t be surprised when Miles’ response is an embarrassed, blush-accompanied duck of his head, “Er, I don’t think so. We’re kinda . . .”

Kerry leans around Miles when his companion falters, one hand to his cheek as he stage whispers, “Monty invited us to his place!”

Apparently, Monty is the name of the mysterious special friend, now so much less mysterious. Then again, Michael still hasn’t heard the guy say a single word the entire night (he either talks too quietly to be heard by anyone not breathing down his neck, like Miles and Kerry, or Michael has just managed to conveniently miss it whenever he’s spoken), and he’s _wearing a wig_. On top of his real hair too, of which a strand or two has slipped out, unnoticed by the person it’s attached to. Weird. So, amended, Monty is still pretty mysterious, and only a little less so post reveal of his name. If that _is_ his name . . .

As far as Michael’s concerned, the guy fits the bill of everything from undercover spy and mafia boss to bounty hunter, and he’d rather not find out if he’s correct on any of those counts.

“Monty’s place?” he levels the man with a skeptical look. Frankly, he’d be fine with letting Miles and Kerry run off into the night with this possible Godfather, but then he’d have to tell Lindsay and he gets the feeling that being on the receiving end of her wrath might not end well for him. “You got a nice pad or something?”

Obligingly, Monty produces a business card and holds it out between middle and forefinger for Michael. “Address is on here,” he says, and whoa, he speaks, it’s a fucking miracle. “As are my home, mobile, and business phone numbers.” Monty raises a thin eyebrow, a small frown on his face that dares Michael to challenge him. “They’ll be in good hands.”

Well that has to be the most thinly veiled euphemism ever. Accordingly, Miles chokes a bit on his final drink of the night once it’s uttered. Fantastic.

Michael watches the trio finish off their drinks, pay their bill, and depart without much more discussion. It’s annoying, really, to find oneself alone in a public area when the purpose of coming to said public area was to make oneself feel less alone. Oh, wait, that’s right. He’s not alone.

He’s got fucking Gavin with him.

Goodie.

Speaking of, Michael spins on his heel to figure out where the dumb idiot has wandered off to. He’d been on the barstool when Monty, Miles, and Kerry were leaving, which of course meant he’d completely fucking vanished the second Michael turned around. Fan-fucking-tastic. A quick peruse of the tables lining the edges of the place reveals nothing, and a bathroom check doesn’t do more than confirm to Michael that Gavin is, guess what, not there. Mentally he begins to write out his will, because it’s certainly going to be needed after tonight. He let Miles and Kerry wander off with a weird secret agent dude, and he lost Gavin. At this rate, he’ll be lucky if Barbara and Lindsay leave enough of his body for the cops to identify.

The only place left to investigate is the dance floor, and on a list of a hundred places Michael currently isn’t in the mood to go to, that’s pretty close to the top. Dance floors at this time of night, when everyone has had enough drinks to sufficiently melt a few brain cells too many, is like a cesspool of uncoordination and groping. Unfortunately, given the current situation, it’s his last hope of not being permanently mangled.

Maneuvering between a couple dozen drunk, dancing people isn’t an easy feat once you’re not dancing yourself. The result of any attempts is usually bruises inflicted by strangers’ elbows, knees, and feet, along with odd wet spots on clothing due to god damn morons who don’t put their drink down before hitting the floor. Somehow though, Michael does manage to get about halfway across, blinking in the constantly flashing technicolor lights and peering around for Gavin. He’s going to kill him when he finds him, seriously. Or at the very least he’s going to noogie the sides of Gavin’s head until he whines, because Barbara wouldn’t be happy if he murdered their tour guide.

Michael jolts as an arm wraps around him from behind and settles against his chest, just below his sternum. Oh joy, the groping begins. He attempts to twist around, intending to clock the perpetrator on the jaw at the very least, but is stopped by a firm hand on his hip and a chuckle against the shell of his ear. “Oh, my little Michael. So feisty.”

_Gavin?_

“I’ve been looking all over for you!” Michael spits, attempting once again to free himself from Gavin’s grip and failing massively. Again. Maybe he’s had more drinks than he thought if he can’t fight off the drunken shenanigans of a weedy little asshole. He manages to at least reposition himself slightly, one of his legs between both of Gavin’s an a stubborn elbow wedged against Gavin’s to allow a few scant inches of space. It’s far from comfortable, but at least he can look Gavin in the eye now without risking a crick in his neck.

“Hmm,” Gavin hums, and Michael is both infuriated and astonished by the casual flippancy of the reply. “I thought I told you I was going to biff about on the dance floor for a bit.”

Scowling, Michael tries to recall if any such conversation had occurred. Yeah, no. One minute Gavin had been there and the next he’d been gone without a word spoken between tem. “You didn’t.” Michael pushes Gavin back a little more and lets out a soft, annoyed sound when Gavin’s hand on his chest doesn’t budge an inch. Fuck. He needs to dislodge it ASAP, what with the nervous jackrabbit of his heart that could easily be mistaken for other things, other emotions. Is personal space just not a thing in the UK or what? “This touchy, weird, drunk thing you’ve got going needs to stop,” he growls when Gavin’s fingers clench a little in the fabric of his shirt. It’s almost like a cat kneading, the image completed by the glazed look in Gavin’s eyes. “Cause, you know,” he continues when Gavin doesn’t so much as blink at the suggestion, “in America this counts as sexual harassment.”

And really, a statement like that should deter most people from, say, skimming their hands down someone’s hips instead of releasing them. Gavin, as he proves by doing exactly that, is not most people.

Michael sucks in a hitched breath as Gavin hooks his thumbs into his belt loops, effectively holding him in place. A retort to this new invasion is only just beginning to be formulated when, holy fuck, Gavin’s teeth meet the lobe of his right ear. Welp, there they go, goodbye any and all angry replies that have just been utterly wiped from Michael’s brain and replaced with an uncomfortable spike of heat in his gut and a long mental string of _shitshitfuckwhatthefuckshitfuckingshitWHATTHEFUCK_.

“Gav-” he starts, biting down on his lip as he realizes how embarrassingly hoarse the single syllable comes out. For fucks sake. “Gavin, what the ever loving hell are you doing?” Michael’s lowered his arm now, his elbow no longer digging into Gavin’s ribs, and he only has a split second in which to glare at the man before he finds himself tugged backwards, Gavin’s hands on his hips pinning him flush against the other boy’s chest. “Gavin!” It comes out as more of a gasp than a shout, and Michael just about smacks himself in the face. Who knew being intimidating was a difficult thing to do while being accosted by a fairly drunk British buttmunch?

Gavin snickers near his ear, close enough that Michael can feel the heat of it against the side of his neck. _Fuck_. “Haven’t you ever heard of dancing?” he asks, sounding far too amused for Michael’s liking. “This is a pretty good song, you know, if you actually stop faffing around and start listening to it.”

“I’m not much of a dancer,” Michael mutters.

“You were dancing with that girl earlier.”

God damn it. “That’s a bit different,” Michael defends. “We were just dicking around, not-”

“Not dancing like this?” Gavin finishes. And yep, there’s that aggravatingly amused tone again. “Want me to teach you how?” Michael catches a smirk playing in the corner of Gavin’s lips before he’s being forced to face forward again, Gavin’s fingers clenching a little against his hips. “Here, look, like this.”

Every single protest Michael can think of dies in his mouth as Gavin starts to direct him, hands firmly on his hips to guide him in shake-jerk-dip-grind sort of motion to the beat of the song (god only knows what song it is, Michael’s far too distracted to give it any attention beyond the rhythm of it Gavin is using to instruct him). And for such an uncoordinated ninny, Gavin, or at least slightly-inebriated Gavin, isn’t half bad at dancing. It’s also not quite as horrendously awkward as Michael had thought it would be, what with being in the opposite position than he’d usually take and all. Having someone positioned at his back where he can’t look them in the eye is still unsettling, but it’s hard to focus on that when said person’s hands are being distracting. Gavin’s fingers, it seems, have just as little attention span as the rest of him, and it’s only a short time before they’re roaming off of Michael’s hips and up his sides. He taps them against Michael’s ribs as if they’re piano keys, keeping time with the music until he grows bored of that and wanders down to follow the wrinkles and scrunch lines in Michael’s shirt. When he gets to the hem he pushes the edge of it up a bit, nails scraping over the skin of Michael’s abdomen and down to hover just above his belt before skipping back up again to fit his hand to the soft spot between ribcage and hip.

Yeah, no one has time to focus on other things when shit like that is going on. It’s more than a little hypnotizing, and Michael finds his eyes switching between the constant flash of the neon-colored lights to the progress of Gavin’s hands across his body, unable to look at one or the other for any significant amount of time.

He’s not quite sure who moves first. The stubborn half of his brain insists that it’s Gavin who triggers it with another lingering bite to his ear that causes Michael to tilt his head back. The rational part of him, however, knows it’s just as much his fault as Gavin’s. After all, he’s the one who lifts an arm and puts his fingers on the back of Gavin’s neck to pull him down and complete the motion.

Contrary to how it may look from the outside, it’s a rather awkward kiss. Brief, not well aimed, and at an odd angle, it’s more of a swift collision than a kiss. But it’s enough to leave a startled look in Gavin’s eyes.

He blinks for a long moment after Michael pulls away, his tongue flicking out to swipe along his bottom lip while Michael slowly lowers his arm, as stunned as Gavin is by his own impulse. Gavin’s still frozen when he drops his gaze again, facing forward with a hand over his face to conceal the flustered flush he knows is rising in his cheeks. “Fuck, sorry,” he grits out when Gavin still doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. “Got carried away, I’ll just-” Gavin’s grip on him is looser now, and Michael almost thinks he’ll be able to slip away and shamefully disappear back to the bar to drink the last minute out of his mind. Hell, he’s already two steps away by the time Gavin reacts.

Fingers tighten against his sides suddenly, stopping Michael in his tracks so that Gavin can close the distance between them again, his head dropping onto Michael’s shoulder. “Didn’t expect that,” Gavin whispers, almost too low to be heard over the thrum of the music. “I was kinda just testing how far I could push you before you hit me.”

Now that’s just too much of a temptation to pass up.

The yelp Gavin expels when Michael elbows him in the gut is totally worth it.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Pinpointing the second things get out of hand is impossible. The last thing Michael remembers before it all escalates is when Gavin grabs him by the front of his shirt, only moments after being elbowed in the gut, and pulls him in to crash their mouths together again. The bits between that and leaving the club are a mystery, as is the half hour it takes them to find the hotel the key Miles gave them belong to and unlocking the room passed in a matter of seconds. Not that any unlocking has actually been done yet since Michael has dropped the key not once, but _twice_ just outside the door.

It’s a little hard to concentrate on anything, including keys and doors, when one is being thoroughly kissed against the aforementioned door. “Gavin,” Michael gasps after the, _fucking Christ_ , third time he fumbles the key. Unsurprisingly Gavin ignores him, and when Michael breaks the kiss to duck down and retrieve the key from the carpet for what is hopefully the final time, Gavin merely redirects his attentions from Michael’s lips to his neck and bites. “Fuck!” Barely managing to keep his grip on the key, he inserts it into the lock and turns. He realizes his mistake when the door begins to ease inward and, as he’s leaning (or rather being pressed) against it, he follows.

The hard landing knocks the wind out of him, doubly so when Gavin collapses over him in the next instant. It’s all very comical, really, except Michael’s lacking the air to laugh about it as he lays coughing for breath on the carpet. Gavin lifts himself up onto his hands and knees above Michael, grinning from ear to ear and illuminated by the square of light of the still open doorway. “Did I take your breath away?” he asks coyly.

“You’re an asshole,” Michael huffs once he has enough oxygen to form a coherent response. He sits up a little just as Gavin reaches for the hem of his shirt and bats the curious fingers away. “Door is still open, fuckwit. Don’t be lewd.”

Gavin arches an eyebrow but obediently withdraws, getting up to push the offending door closed. “So,” he presses once he’s clicked the lock back in place, “does that mean I’m allowed to do as I please behind closed doors?”

The obvious reply should be no. Really, it should. But the syllable dies on Michael’s tongue when Gavin leans over him again, fingers carefully pushing up the edge of his shirt and flattening across the bare skin of his stomach beneath. And holy fuck, Michael realizes, they’re not even going to make it off the god damn floor.

There’s something about Gavin’s gaze on him that keeps him quiet as the other man explores, nails scraping over his ribs as the shirt slowly gets hitched up Michael’s chest an inch at a time. His eyes are darker than usual, pupils blown wide behind narrowed lids, and his expression seems just as guarded as it is open. He examines each revealed patch of skin like a scientist, eyes flickering over it as if he’s mentally detailing every tiny inflection and imperfection before he traces them with his fingers, circling old scars and faint moles.

Michael watches him but makes no moves to mimic, hypnotized by Gavin’s apparent fascination with his body. When the shirt is finally pulled overhead and discarded he lays an arm over his eyes, face flushed as Gavin dips down to gently sink his teeth into Michael’s collar bone. “Don’t be so embarrassed, love,” Gavin murmurs against the softly purpling mark. It’s the first thing he’s said in minutes. He scrapes his nails up Michael’s sides, a smirk curling across his lips when Michael elicits a shiver. “Ah,” he cocks his head, “I suppose I should make the playing field a bit more even, yeah?”

A hand to Michael’s wrist removes the arm from his face, pinning it to the floor for a brief moment with enough pressure to cajole Michael to keep it there even after it’s been released. The room is still dark, neither of them having turned on the lights when they entered/fell into it, and it’s only by the city neons and street lamps outside that Michael can see anything. Gavin sits back so that he’s now effectively straddling Michael’s hips and grabs the bottom of his own shirt. It’s pulled off in one fluid motion and leaves nothing but a faint flash of static over Gavin’s hair before it joins Michael’s somewhere on the other side of the room. He falls forward to rest his weight on his elbows again, tangling his hands into Michael’s curls as he whispers, “There. Better?” into the soft spot between neck and jaw.

It’s as much of an invitation as Michael knows he’s going to get. Tentatively, he raises his hands to Gavin’s chest, chasing the trail of dark hair down to the line of his jeans. Gavin groans when Michael hooks a finger into the waistband, hips rolling forward of their own accord. “Eager, aren’t we,” Gavin smirks before tilting Michael’s head to the side to catch his lips again. “No need to rush.”

Michael laughs into the kiss. “Gav, I’m eighteen. At this age, everything is a rush.”

Pulling back a little, an unnervingly amused expression crosses Gavin’s features. “Oh?” The murmur of the word sends a shiver through Michael’s frame, and Gavin’s smile grows wider, eviler. “I think I can fix that.”

Oh. God.

Before Michael can formulate any sort of coherent reply Gavin’s brushed his hands away from his waist, pinning them to his sides as he makes one last sweep down Michael’s torso. He nips at the soft skin of his stomach, just above the waistband of his jeans, and Michael hisses. “What the fu- Why are you such a tease?” Michael grits his teeth as Gavin huffs out a warm laugh and presses a kiss below his navel. “Seriously. You’ve had way too many drinks to be this much of a tease.”

Gavin smirks, “You take me for a lightweight, love. A bev or . . . Or six isn’t going to butter me up none.”

Which, no shit, Michael knows that. This is the guy who attempted to murder him on a double-decker bus and _laughed_ about it for fuck’s sake. Gavin’s middle name is probably Tease. He throws an arm over his eyes again as Gavin slides a finger under the collective waistbands of both boxers and pants. “You’re the devil,” he says, blatantly trying to ignore the hitch in his breath while Gavin slowly undoes the button and zipper. “Lucifer incarnate.”

“Mmmm, probably.”

He nudges Michael’s hips up with a hand on his lower back, and Michael obliges, still refusing to uncover his eyes. As with everything thus far, the actual removal of his pants is languid. Gavin takes his time, fingers scraping between Michael’s inner and outer thighs as he goes. They’re still tangled around his ankles when he pushes Michael’s right leg up, hooking the ankle over his shoulder in order to bite high up on his thigh, too temptingly close. Michael’s back arches off the floor in response, and Gavin practically growls before ripping the pants the rest of the way off. “Liked that, hmm?” he hums, leaning over Michael again and prying his arm away from his face.

Michael squeezes his eyes shut, embarrassed by his own reaction. “Fuck off.”

His arm is released without further comment. For a moment, Michael interprets the silence to mean that Gavin has gotten up, possibly left. Except he can still hear him breathing above him, and can still detect the warmth of his body, close but no longer quite touching. Cautiously, he peeks his eyes open, starting slightly when he sees Gavin’s face hovering no more than an inch from his own, head tilted to the side so as not to breathe directly on him. As soon as he opens his eyes, Gavin tilts it back, nose to nose with him now, and grins. “There. Got you to look at me. Was that so hard, Michael?”

And, wow, he likes the way that sounds. The way his own name rolls off of Gavin’s tongue, breathy and soft. “No,” he admits.

Gavin rests his weight on his elbows, his arms flat on the floor on either side of Michael’s head so that when he reaches, tangling his fingers into Michaels hair before closing the gap and kissing him, it’s a simple matter. Unconsciously, Michael leans into it, hands finding Gavin’s back to search for purchase there. The movement of Gavin’s mouth over his, the careful exploratory dip of his tongue into Michael’s mouth and gentle tug of teeth on his lips is all encompassing. It leaves very little room for coherent thought in Michael’s mind, so that the first roll of Gavin’s hips comes as somewhat of a shock. He gasps into the kiss at the sudden, dizzying friction, fingers clenching over Gavin’s shoulder blades. “Fuck!”

“Trying,” Gavin murmurs. He pulls away a bit, forehead resting against Michael’s as he gives a few more experimental thrusts. “Weird angle,” he decides after a pause, and he sits back. It’s only after he’s leaned away that Michael notices how cold the rest of the room seems without him. Instinctively, he moves to follow, but Gavin pins him back down with a hand. “Hold on, love. Let me just . . .” It’s only then, when the pair of pants is tossed high over head, that Michael realizes Gavin was still half clothed. He shifts a bit once he’s fully nude, knees digging into the carpet and his toes curled underneath him. “Right. Here.” Taking hold of Michael’s hips, Gavin pulls him back towards him. “Put your legs around my waist. Like-” he cuts himself off as Michael does as instructed, “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

“We’re going to have horrible rug burns later,” Michael remarks.

“Probably.”

Scratches and scrapes via shitty hotel carpet be damned though, because the second Gavin rolls his hips again all thoughts flee Michael’s mind at mach five. “Shit,” he chokes, knees tightening around Gavin’s waist.

“I’m going to be sorely disappointed if the extent of your sex vocabulary is just the usual menagerie of curses you’re prone to use.” Gavin tugs Michael’s lip between his teeth again, a precursor to a kiss that swallows down a sharp, unfinished exclamation from the other man as he begins to pick an easy, rocking rhythm.

It takes a second for Michael to catch his breath and fight through the blissful haze in his mind in order to glare at Gavin. “What? You want me to be more creative or something like th-that?” He arches again, eyes fluttering shut and his breath stuttering in his lungs. “Christ, Gavin. It’s a little hard to be creative right now.”

“There you go,” Gavin whispers against the corners of his mouth. “You got it.”

Michael forces his eyes open again, staring at him for a heartbeat before his spine arches again when Gavin lines up at just the right angle. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” the words escape him, hoarse gasping, “Fuck, Gavin.” A small chuff of breath that’s almost a laugh makes it’s way out of Gavin’s mouth, and Michael blinks. “Wait. That’s what you wanted out of me? For me to say your name?”

“It’s the magic word,” Gavin affirms. He captures Michael’s lips again, silencing whatever haughty protests might have come. “And if you try and be stubborn and not say it, I’m sure I can find other ways to make you scream it.”

Unfortunately, Michael knows that at this point, that really wouldn’t be too hard. And just as unfortunately, like hell he’s going to comply after a statement like that. Challenge accepted, motherfucker.

Gavin must see it in his eyes, because the second that thought passes through Michael’s mind he stops moving. Michael cants his hips up almost immediately in response, already aching from the sudden and severe lack of the glorious friction he’d had only a moment ago. “For the love of - Are you serious right now?” he snaps. The retort lacks weight, however, as Michael realizes his tone is more desperate than angry. God damn it. Gavin merely quirks an eyebrow. He keeps one hand tangled in Michael’s hair, fingers kneading his scalp as he waits. He must have the self restraint of a fucking saint, Michael thinks as he tries to roll his hips and regain the momentum despite. Again, he fails, and it dawns upon him that it’s due to Gavin’s ingenious positioning. At this angle, it’s Gavin, and only Gavin, who’s in charge.

Well that’s both terrifying and a turn on at the same time.

A third and fourth try leave Michael panting. His cock, nearly flush with his stomach and dripping precum because, _fuck_ , he’d been close before Gavin decided to be an asshole, twitches with each frantic attempt. “Please,” he hears himself whine when he falls back again, nails digging into Gavin’s shoulders and his chest heaving. “Please, I need . . .” Michael swallows, “Gavin, please.”

“That’s my boy.”

Gavin leans back in, lining their bodies up again. The first, barest touch of skin to skin again leaves Michael shivering, and when Gavin wraps a hand around the both of them, stroking upwards, he cries out.

This time, Gavin strokes them both in time with his thrusts. He grips his fingers close to the base of Michael’s cock every few seconds, just often enough that it always leaves Michael right on the edge and unable to topple over it. “Fu- Gavin!” He’s wearing lines into Gavin’s shoulders, he knows it, short nails or not. “Please!”

“Just hold out a bit longer.” Gavin’s breath too now is heady, uneven and short with every roll of his hips. There are few kisses to be exchanged at this point, the need to suck air into their lungs preventing it. His hand is still twisted into Michael’s hair though, their foreheads pressed together and their clipped breaths mingling between them. He squeezes again at the point where Michael’s so close that he sees white when Gavin does it, the elicited scream that follows as equally frustrated as it is in ecstasy. If Gavin denies him again, he fears he might actually pass out. “Gavin!” he begs. And fuck, Gavin was correct. He actually fucking screamed his name. Asshole.

The tempo has picked up, an indicator of Gavin’s own rising need for release, and Michael arches upwards with almost every thrust, achingly desperate. He strokes them still, though no longer quiet as well matched with his other movements, and it’s a mere three sharp jerks of his hand before Michael’s coming, finally unabated. His whole body convulses with it, curling inwards and pulling Gavin impossibly closer to him. It isn’t until his lungs begin to burn that he realizes he forgot to breathe. Gavin’s hand in his hair clenches, pulling on borderline painful, and Michael opens his eyes just in time to see the other man tense, a silent, open-mouthed gasp on his lips as he spills over Michael’s stomach.

They lay there for a long moment, gulping down the much needed air as the beads of sweat begin to cool on their bodies. Michael is the first to move. He glides his hand up from Gavin’s shoulders to the back of his head, fingers running through his hair before pulling him down for a light, lingering kiss. “Fucking messy,” he laughs when Gavin pulls back, eyes blinking rapidly as if trying to clear his head. “Let me up, kay? I don’t need this crud drying on me.” Gavin does so and rolls off of him to lay on his side across the carpet, his head resting in the crook of his elbow. Michael stands and lets out a huff at the sight. “Are you half asleep already? Don’t lay on the floor.”

“‘S’been a long night,” Gavin says by way of explanation. And to the surprise of no one, he stays where he is. Michael feels his gaze on his back as he shuffles into the bathroom, and when Michael peeks back at him, Gavin shoots him a cheeky smile. “Great view from here,” he hums, smile only widening when Michael flushes scarlet and promptly slams the door between them.

When he emerges five minutes later, tired and covered in significantly less fluids, Gavin’s already in bed. In fact, it takes Michael a good few seconds to realize that, what with the covers being pulled up all the way to Gavin’s nose and all. He stands there for a heartbeat or two, uncertain of the typical conduct in these sorts of situations.

Gavin rolls over and thumps a hand across the opposite pillow. “Don’t just stand there like that, it’s creeping me out,” he mumbles into his own pillow. “Get under the covers before you freeze to death in your birthday suit.”

Michael complies without hesitation and slides under the covers, careful to keep to his own side of the mattress. The caution doesn’t last however, as Gavin doesn’t spare any time before pulling him over into the middle, incessant arms curling around Michael’s waist. The smile is still pasted to his face when he presses a fumbling kiss to Michael’s forehead. “We just rutted on the floor like a couple of teenagers,” he giggles into Michael’s hair.

“We are a couple of teenagers, Gavin.”

“Oh yeah.”

Another laugh bubbles out of Michael’s throat, hitting all the notes that Gavin’s accompanying one doesn’t in the muffled space between mattress and sheets. When their mild hysteria dies down the silence is just as comforting, just as natural, and Michael drifts off with the sound of Gavin’s gradually slowing, evening breathing in his ears.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

It’s raining. Not very hard, nothing like the day they’d flown in, but raining nonetheless. It patters on the windows and plunks down the drainpipes like an off-tempo drum beat. It’s that odd plinking that wakes Michael, disturbed from his heavy sleep by the weird tune of fat raindrops in vertical metal pipes. There must be one near the window by the bed, because it’s far too loud to ignore, and god does Michael try to do just that. Alas, not even a pillow over his head can drown out the irritating speckle and drip of water down the drain, and eventually he goes back to laying normally, cheek pressed to the pillow as he glares at the window where he knows the offending rain and pipe must be just beyond.

Gradually, his gaze shifts over, his muscles tensing as he realizes, or rather remembers, that he’s not alone in the plush bed. Gavin’s curled on his side, face half hidden in the mattress (his pillow seemingly having abandoned him as it’s nowhere in sight), and the covers pooled around his waist. Chilled as the room is due to the weather, Michael doesn’t know how he can stand it, and upon closer inspection Gavin isn’t even sporting a single goose bump. Figures.

It must be closer to noon than it is dawn, no matter what the darkened sky tries to lead Michael to believe. There are cars in the streets, the telltale splash of tires through wide puddles giving them away, and outside the chattering of early morning birds is severely lacking.

Michael contemplates getting up and showering, or finding his clothes from the night before (god even knows where those are), but the temptation to stay in bed is just too strong. Plus, Gavin’s still in bed. Why the fuck would he get up when that added bonus was right in front of him? And really, Michael doesn’t want to be that guy, the one who watches their partner sleep like a freaky weirdo, but he doesn’t have anything else to do.

Gavin’s skin is largely unmarked save for his back, which Michael notes is sporting a faint pattern of raw, red stripes stretching from the base of his neck to the bottom of his shoulder blades. Nice. It hardly equals the six-fucking-thousand little bruises and bites littered across Michael’s front, but at least it’s something. Why he hadn’t expected the gabbing Brit to be just as mouthy in bed he’ll never know.

He’s starting to drift off again when Gavin stirs, arms stretching out above him until his knuckles tap the headboard. The other man yawns and arches his back a bit, blankets riding even farther down his body as he hums contentedly. Michael can’t help but stare, both fascinated and _interested_ by the morning ritual. He wonders if Gavin might be up for a little morning roll between the sheets, and starts to open his mouth to slyly suggest it when Gavin turns back over.

Michael stops cold, the words dying on the tip of his tongue. Gavin raises an eyebrow as his eyes meet Michael’s, “You’re still here?”

“Uhm, yeah?”

“Hmm.” Gavin rolls out of bed, pausing briefly to retrieve his pillow from the floor and toss it back onto the bed. “Best find your clothes then. I’ll take the shower first.” He crosses the room, oblivious to Michael’s befuddled gaze following him, and disappears into the bathroom without another word.

What the fuck?

Slowly, Michael drags himself out of bed and begins to search for his things. It’s a task all its own, what with one of his socks under the bed and the other on the opposite side of the fucking room. What the hell. When he finally retrieves it all he collects it into a pile on the end of the bed, wondering if he should fetch Gavin’s stuff as well. He has half a mind to, if only because of the way Gavin had looked at him when he’d blinked himself awake.

It was very, very far from the amused warmth he’d seen in those same eyes the night before. The stare Gavin had leveled him with this morning was dull, disinterested, and distant. Honestly, shock would have been better. Michael can deal with a surprise morning after, hell, he’d half been expecting it from at least one of them. They'd had quite a few drinks. But that indifferent stare? That look that left him feeling as if he’d missed something important and been suddenly left out to dry?

God, he hopes he misread that.

Gavin reappears, fresh out of the shower, and sits naked on the opposite edge of the bed while he towel dries his hair. He doesn’t say anything, at least not until he notices that Michael hasn’t moved to take his place in the bathroom, upon which he mutters a short, “You gonna shower or what?”

Michael starts a bit. “I . . . Yeah, I guess, I was just . . .” He bites his lip. There’s no need to be subtle, right? Considering they fucked on the carpet last night, there’s not really any point. “If I shower I have to get dressed,” he says, trying for coy. “And as we still have this whole room to ourselves-”

“Barbara wants to go shopping at Carnaby today,” Gavin interrupts. “It’s already almost eleven, don’t want to keep her waiting.” His tone is just as dismissive as his gaze had been, and it leaves Michael feeling cold. “Shower and get dressed, then we’ll see if they have a coffee shop ‘round here.” He stands again, circling around until he’s in front of Michael. For a foolish moment, Michael thinks he was wrong as Gavin leans down towards him and . . . And snatches his boxers off the floor. His thoughts must have been clearly displayed on his face, however, because when Gavin straightens again he takes a second to stare at Michael, mouth curved down in the tiniest of frowns. “What?”

“That’s it?” Michael clenches his hands into fists against his knees. “That’s all you have to say to me?”

“Michael-”

“Look, I may not be the most experienced person when it comes to how mornings after are supposed to go, but I’m pretty fucking sure it’s not like this.”

“Mi-”

“Seriously, Gavin. What the fuck!

“Michael.” Gavin catches him by the chin, halting any further outbursts, and holds him still. “It was just sex. Get over it.”

**[_Get Over It_ by Space-catss](http://space-catss.tumblr.com/) **

His heart stutters, stalls in his chest as Gavin releases him, and the words sink hard, and heavy down to Michael’s gut. _What?_ Gavin’s gone back his side of the bed again, collecting his clothes off the floor piece by piece.

He sits there a second longer, eyes fixed on the bone-white clench of his fists in his lap before he forces himself to his feet and makes his way to the bathroom. How his phone found its way to his hand he doesn’t quite recall, but when Michael dumps his clothes onto the counter by the sink there it is. Turning it on is second nature despite having it off the entire day before, and within seconds he’s flipping through his most recent contacts and typing out a message.

_Michael: I fucked up_

_Ray: The reign of silence ends. Now who do I need to punch?_

A bitter, hiccup of a laugh escapes Michael, and he rests his head in his hands for a breath before continuing.

_Michael: You’re going to fly across the entire ocean to punch a British dude? Yeah right. You don’t even want to leave the apartment half the time just to go to get fucking Starbucks_

_Ray: That Gavin kid?_

_Michael: Nergh_

_Ray: Very descriptive. I’m going to take that as an indicator that you boinked_

_Michael: It’s scary how you do that_

_Ray: Ikr. Anywho, srsly. What happened?_

_Michael: “It’s just sex”_

_Ray: Oh geeze_

_Michael: Nbd. Just didn’t expect it I guess_

_Ray: He sounds like an asshole_

_Michael: Yeah_

_Ray: I’m sorry dude_

_Michael: I’ll get over it. Just needed someone to complain to_

_Ray: Really? You’ll be okay?_

Michael sets his phone down on the counter, the latest message still displayed on the screen without a reply. What the hell is he supposed to say to that? If he said he would, it’d be a lie. And, god, he’s so fucking tired of lying to Ray. Of course he’ll get over it, just maybe not as fast or as easily as he’d like.

It’s a little tough, after all, to try and stop a fresh wound from bleeding when you still haven’t quite bandaged an older one.

Thank god for long showers, and their ability to wash off the blood. Or in this case, the last remnants of the night before. The bruises and bites that stick stubbornly to his skin, Michael decides, are best left as they are. He thinks about covering them for awhile, the ones a little too high up on his neck and along the inside of his wrist. Except maybe seeing them out in the open for the rest of the day, a mark of his foolhardy mistake, he’ll learn to stop wearing his heart on his sleeve.

_Michael: Yeah, really. I’ll be fine_

Lies are like a boulder on a slope. Once you start it rolling, you find it hard to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes there will be more. Fear not.


End file.
